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I  TIIEOLCGiCAL  SEMLNiRY.I 

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THE  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS  OP  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  PROVED 
TO  BE  CORRUPT  ADDITIONS  TO  THE  WORD  OF  GOD. 


THE 

ARGUMENTS  OF  ROMANISTS 

FROM    THE 

INFALLIBILITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  TESTIMONY 
OF  THE  FATHERS  IN  BEHALF  OF  THE  APOCRYPHA, 

DISCUSSED   AND   REFUTED. 


BY 

JAMES  H.^THOIlNWELL, 

PROFESSOR   OF    SACRED    LITBBATDRH!    AND   THE     EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY 
IN      THE      SOUTH      CAROLINA      COLLEGE. 


NEW-YORK  . 

LEAVITTjTROW    &    COMPANY, 

ROBERT      CARTER.  —  BOSTON,       CHARLES      TAPPAN.  —  PHILADELPHIA, 

PERKINS    &     PURVES. — BALTIMORE,        D.        OWEN      &      SON. 

CHARLESTON,     S.     HART,      SENIOR,      D.     W.     HARRISON. 
— COLUMBIA,     S'.     WEIR,     MC    CARTER    &.     ALLEN. 

1845. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  ol  Congress,  in  the  year  1844, 

By  LEAVITT,  TROW,  &  CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


DEDICATION. 


TO   THE 

REV.  ROBERT  J.  BRECKENRIDGE,  D.  D., 

AN   ORNAMENT    TO    HIS    CHURCH, 

AND    A 

BLESSING     TO     HIS     COUNTRY, 
A   STRANGER   TO   EVERY   OTHER   FEAR   BUT   THE  FEAR  OF  GOD, 

THE  BOLD  DEFENDER  AND  UNTIRING  ADVOCATE 
OF 

STrutf),  JLihtvtr),  nnti  ilcliflfon, 
THIS   BOOK, 

WHICH    OWES    ITS    EXISTENCE    TO    HIS    INSTRUMENTALITY, 

18    NOW   AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED    BY 

THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 

The  history  of  the  present  publication  is  soon  told.  Some 
time  in  the  year  1841  I  wrote,  at  the  special  request  of  a 
friend  in  Baltimore,  Rev.  Dr.  Breckenridge,  a  short  essay  on 
the  claims  of  the  Apocrypha  to  Divine  Inspiration.  This  was 
printed  anonymously  in  the  Baltimore  Visiter,  as  No.  V.  of  a 
series  of  articles  furnished  by  Protestants,  in  a  controversy 
then  pending  with  the  domestic  chaplains  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Baltimore.  From  the  Visiter  it  was  copied  into  the  Spirit 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  some  time  during  1842.  From  the 
Spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  it  was  transferred,  by  the 
editor  of  the  Southern  Chronicle,  a  valuable  newspaper  pub- 
lished in  this  place,  to  his  own  columns,  and  without  consult- 
ing me,  or  in  any  way  apprising  me  of  his  design,  he  took  the 
liberty,  having  ascertained  that  I  was  the  author,  to  append 
my  name  to  it.  Seeing  it  printed  under  my  name,  and,  as  he 
might  naturally  suppose,  by  my  authority.  Dr.  Lynch,  a  Ro- 
man Catholic  Priest  of  Charleston,  of  reputed  cleverness  and 
learning,  no  doubt  regarded  it  as  an  indirect  challenge  to  the 
friends  of  Rome  to  vindicate  their  Mistress  from  the  severe 
charges  which  were  brought  against  her.  He  accoi-dingly  ad- 
dressed to  me  a  series  of  letters,  which  the  members  of  his 
own  sect  pronounced  to  be  very  able,  and  to  which  the  follow- 
ing dissertations  (for  though  in  the  form  of  letters  they  are 
really  essays)  are  a  reply.  The  presumption  is  that  the  full 
strength  of  the  Papal  cause  was  exhibited  by  its  champion  ; 
and  that  the  reader  may  be  able  to  judge  for  himself  of  the 
security  of  the  basis  on  which  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha 
is  made  to  depend,  I  have  given  the  substance  of  Dr.  Lynch's 
articles  in  the  Appendix.     This  work,  consequently,  presents 


8  PREFACE. 

an  unusually  full  discussion  of  the  whole  subject  connected 
with  these  books.  I  have  insisted  largely  upon  the  dogma  of 
infallibility-^more  largely,  perhaps,  than  many  of  my  readers 
may  think  to  be  consistent  with  the  general  design  of  my  per- 
formance— because  I  regard  this  as  the  prop  and  bulwark  of 
all  the  abominations  of  the  Papacy.  It  is  the  stronghold,  or 
rather,  as  Robert  Hall  [expresses  it,  "  the  corner-stone  of  the 
whole  system  of  Popery — the  centre  of  union  amidst  all  the 
animosities  and  disputes  which  may  subsist  on  minor  subjects  ; 
and  the  proper  definition  of  a  Catholic  is,  one  who  professes 
to  maintain  the  absolute  infallibility  of  a  certain  community 
styling  itself  the  Church." 

It  is  not  for  me  to  commend  my  own  production,  neither 
shall  I  seek  to  soften  the  asperity  of  criticism  by  plaintive 
apologies  or  humble  confessions.  In  justice,  however,  I  may 
state  that  the  following  pages  were  composed  in  the  midst  of 
manifold  afflictions — some  of  the  letters  were  written  in  the 
chamber  of  the  sick  and  by  the  bed  of  the  dying,  and  all  were 
thrown  off  under  a  pressure  of  duty  which  left  no  leisure  for 
the  task  but  the  hours  which  were  stolen  from  the  demands  of 
nature.  If,  under  circumstances  so  well  fitted  to  chasten  the 
spirit  and  to  modify  the  temper,  I  could  really  harbor  the  ma- 
lignity and  bitterness  which,  in  certain  quarters,  have  been 
violently  charged  upon  me,  I  must  carry  in  my  bosom  the 
heart  of  a  demon  and  not  of  a  man,  "  And  here  will  I  make 
an  end.  If  I  have  done  well,  and  as  is  fitting  the  story,  it  is 
that  which  I  desired  ;  but  if  slenderly  and  meanly,  it  is  that 
which  I  could  attain  unto." 

J.  H.  Thornwell. 

Columbia,  S.  C,  July  12,  1844. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGr 
LETTER  I. 

Severity  of  rebuke  necessary  in  reproving  error. — Mistaken  notions  of  charity  exposed. 
— The  reaK  character  of  Popery — shown  to  be  Anti-Christian  and  dangerous — no  bet- 
tor than  Mahometanism. — The  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent  in  reference  to  the 
Apocrypha, 9 

LETTER  II. 
Dr.  Lynch'a  great  argument  in  proof  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha  shown  to  be 
ambiguous. — The  testimony  of  the  Papacy,  on  moral  grounds,  entitled  to  no  consid- 
eration,        36 

LETTER  III. 
Examination  of  the  argument  from  the  necessity  of  the  case  in  favor  of  some  infallible 

tribunal,  shown  to  be  presumptuous  and  weak, 36 

LETTER  IV. 
It  is  just  as  easy  to  prove  the  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  Infallibility  of  any 

Church, 57 

LETTER  V. 
Historical  difBculties  in  the  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility, 79 

LETTER  VI. 
The  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility  the  Parent  of  Skepticism, 89 

LETTER  VII. 
Papal  Infallibility  shown  to  be  conducive  to  licentiousness  and  immorality, 105 

LETTER  VIII. 
Papal  Infallibility  proved  to  be  the  patron  of  Superstition  and  Will-worship, 116 

LETTER  IX. 
Papal  Infallibility  proved  to  be  unfriendly  to  civil  government, 143 

LETTER  X. 
Apocrypha  not  quoted  in  the  New  Testament, 162 

LETTER  XI. 
Exclusion  of  the  Apocrypha  from  the  Jewish  canon. — Definition  of  the  term  canon  ; 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  formed. — The  evidence  necessary  to  make 
a  book  canonical. — The  distinction  between  not  receiving  and  rejecting  a  book  shown 
to  be  false 175 

LETTER  XII. 
Our  Saviour  approved  the  Jewish  canon  and  treated  it  as  complete.     Sadducoes  vindi- 
cated from  tlie  charge  of  rejecting  all  the  Old  Testament  but  the  Pentateuch.     The 
real  point  which  Papists  must  prove,  in  order  to  establish  the  inspiration  of  the 
Apocrypha, 1 89 


8  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LETTER  XIII. 
Rejection  of  the  Apocrypha  by  the  Jews. — Faith  of  the  Primitive  Church  not  a  standard 

to  us, 205 

LETTER  XIV.  ♦ 
The  existence  of  the  Apocrypha  in  ancient  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  no  proof  of  inspi- 
ration.— Not  quoted  by  the  Apostolic  Fathers, 215 

LETTER  XV. 

The  application   of  such  expressions  as  '  Scripture,'  '  Divine  Scripture,'  by  ancient 

writers  to  the  Apocrypha,  no  proof  of  inspiration, 231 

LETTER  XVI. 
Examination  of  Testimonies, 246 

LETTER  XVn. 
Testimony  of  the  writers  of  the  third  century  considered — Cyprian,  Hippolytus,  Apos- 
tolic Constitutions, 266 

LETTER  XVIIT. 
Testimony  of  the  Fourth  Century  considered. — Council  of  Nice. — Councils  of  Hippo 
and  Carthage. — Testimony  of  Augustine— Ephrem  the  Syrian — Basil — Chrysostom — 
Ambrose, 277 

LETTER  XIX. 
The  real  Testimony  of  the  Primitive  Church.— The  Canons  of  Mclito,  Oiigen,  Athan- 

asius,  Hilary,  Cyril,  Gregory  Naz.,  Jerome,  Ruflinus,  Council  of  Laodicea 310 

Appendix, • 339 


EOMAXIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE  APOCRYPHA 
DISCUSSED  AND  REFUTED. 


LETTER    I. 


Severity  of  rebuke  necessary  in  reproving  error. — Mistaken  notions  of  charity  exposed. — The 
real  character  of  Popery — shown  to  be  Anti-Christian  and  dangerous — no  better  than  Ma- 
bometanism. — The  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent  in  reference  to  the  Apocrypha. 

Sir  : — If  you  had  been  content  with  simply  writing  a  review 
of  my  article  on  the  Apocrypha,  without  alluding  to  me  in  any 
other  way  than  as  its  author,  I  should  not,  perhaps,  have  troubled 
you  with  any  notice  of  your  strictures.  But  you  have  chosen 
the  form  of  a  personal  address;  and  though  the  rules  of  courtesy 
do  not  require  that  anonymous  letters  should  be  answered,  yet  I 
find  that  your  epistles  are  generally  regarded  as  a  challenge  to 
discuss,  through  the  public  press,  the  peculiar  and  distinctive 
principles  of  the  sect  to  which  you  belong.  Such  a  challenge 
I  cannot  decline.  Taught  in  the  school  of  that  illustrious  phi- 
losopher who  drew  the  first  constitution  of  this  State,  I  profess 
to  be  a  lover  of  truth,  and  especially  of  the  truth  of  God  ;  and  as 
I  am  satisfied  that  it  has  nothing  to  apprehend  from  the  assaults 
of  error,  so  long  as  a  country  is  permitted  to  enjoy  that  "  capi- 
tal advantage  of  an  enlightened  people,  the  liberty  of  discussing 
every  subject  which  can  fall  within  the  compass  of  the  human 
mind,"  (a  liberty,  as  you  well  know,  possessed  by  the  citizens  of 
no  Papal  State,)  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  dread  the  results  of  a 
controversy  conducted  even  in  the  spirit  which  you  ascribe  to 
me. 

If,  sir,  my  sensibilities  were  as  easily  wounded  as  your  own, 
I  too  might  take  offence  at  the  asperity  of  temper  which  you 
have,  indeed,  attempted  to  conceal  by  a  veil  of  affected  polite- 
ness,  but  which,  in  spite  of  your  caution,  has  more  than  once 

'2 


10  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

been  discovered  through  the  flimsy  disguise.     But,  sir,  the  spirit 
of  your  letter  is  a  matter  of  very  little  consequence  to  me. 

If  the  moderation  and  courtesy  of  the  Papal  priesthood  were 
not  so  exclusively  confined  to  Protestant  countries,  where  they 
are  a  lean  and  beggarly  minority,  there  would  be  less  reason  for 
ascribing  their  politeness  to  the  dictates  of  craft  instead  of  the 
impulses  of  a  generous  mind.  It  is  certainly  singular  that  Pa- 
pists among  us  should  make  such  violent  pretensions  to  fastidi- 
ousness of  taste  when  the  style  of  their  Royal  Masters — if  the 
example  of  the  Popes  is  of  value — stands  pre-eminent  in  letters 
for  coarseness,  vulgarity,  ribaldry  and  abuse.  Dogs,  wolves, 
foxes  and  adders,  imprecations  of  wrath  and  the  most  horrible 
anathemas,  dance  through  their  Bulls,  "  in  all  the  mazes  of  met- 
aphorical confusion."  If  these  models  of  Papal  refinement  are 
not  observed  in  a  Protestant  State,  men  will  be  apt  to  reflect  that 
an  Order  exists  among  you  whose  secret  instructions  have  re- 
duced fraud  to  a  system,  and  lying  to  an  art.  How  you,  sir, 
without  ''  compunctious  visitings  of  conscience,"  could  magnify 
breaches  of  ''  the  rules  of  courtesy"  on  the  part  of  Protestants 
towards  the  adherents  of  the  Papal  communion,  into  serious 
evils  which  often  required  you  "  to  draw  on  your  patience,"  is 
to  me  a  matter  of  profound  astonishment.  *     Standing  as  you  do 

*  "  Permit  me  to  take  this  occasion  of  expressing  once  for  all  my  regret  at 
finding  an  essay  from  you  so  plentifully  interspersed  with  the  vulgar  epithets. 
Papist^  Eomanist,  and  such  manifestations  of  ill  feeling  as  the  expressions,  ras- 
sals  of  Eome,  and  captives  to  the  car  of  Borne,  the  assertion  that  our  "  credu- 
lity is  enormous,"  and  your  mocking  language  concerning  the  awful  mystery  of 
transubstantiation,  and  the  Church  with  which  even  in  quotations  I  am  unwil- 
ling to  sully  my  pen.  Believe  me,  reverend  sir,  such  invectives  contain  no 
argument.  They  are  unbecoming  the  subject,  and  I  may  presume  to  add,  the 
dignified  station  you  occupy.  Your  essay  would  have  lost  none  of  its  weight, 
and  to  Catholics  would  have  been  infinitely  less  revolting,  had  they  been  omitted. 
Catholics  are  neither  outcasts  from  society,  nor  devoid  of  feeling  ;  they  are  nei- 
ther insensible  to,  nor  think  they  deserve,  such  words  of  opprobrium.  It  is  true 
we  have  often  to  draw  on  our  patience,  for  the  rules  of  courtesy  are  frequently 
violated  in  our  regard.  Still  it  is  painful  to  see  a  Professor  descending  from 
calm,  gentlemanly  and  enlightened  argument,  to  mingle  with  the  crowd  of  those 
whose  weapons  are  misrepresentations  and  abuse.  I  will  not  recur  to  this 
disagreeable  topic,  but  will  endeavor  to  write  as  if  your  arguments  were  unac- 
companied by  what  Catholics  must  consider  as  insults."— J,  P.  f.  Letter  T. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  11 

among  the  children  of  the  Huguenots,  whose  fathers  tested  the 
liberality  of  Rome,  and  signalized  their  own  heroic  fortitude  at 
the  stake,  the  gibbet,  and  the  wheel,  were  you  not  ashamed  to 
complain  of  "  trifles  light  as  air,"  mere  "  paper  bullets  of  the 
brain,"  while  the  blood  of  a  thousand  martyrs  was  cryino-  to 
heaven  against  you?  Two  centuries  have  not  yet  elapsed  since 
the  exiles  of  Languedoc  found  an  asylum  in  this  State.  "Who 
could  have  dreamed  that,  in  so  short  a  time,  those  who  had  pur- 
sued them  with  unrelenting  fury  at  home,  should  have  been 
found  among  their  descendants,  whining  in  deceitful  strains 
about  charity  and  politeness?  They  who,  in  every  country 
where  their  pretended  spiritual  dominion  has  been  supported  by 
the  props  of  secular  authority,  have  robbed,  murdered  and  plun- 
dered all  who  have  been  guilty  of  the  only  crimes  which  Rome 
cannot  tolerate — freedom  of  thought  and  obedience  to  God — 
are  horribly  persecuted  if  they  are  not  treated  with  the  smooth 
hypocrisy  of  courtly  address  !  Did  you  feel  constrained,  sir, 
in  the  city  of  Charleston,  where  the  recollection  of  the  past  can- 
not have  perished,  where  the  touching  story  of  Judith  Manio-ault 
must  always  be  remembered,  to  make  the  formal  declaration 
that  ^^  Catholics  (meaning  Papists)  are  not  devoid  of  feeling?" 
Were  you  afraid  that  the  delight  which  you  formerly  took  in  sun- 
dering the  tenderest  ties  of  nature,  tearing  children  from  their 
parents,  and  husbands  from  their  wives,  and  above  all  your  keen 
relish  for  Protestant  blood,  coupled  with  the  notorious  fact  that 
you  have  renounced  your  reason  and  surrendered  the  exercise  of 
private  judgment,  might  otherwise  have  created  a  shrewd  suspi- 
cion that  you  possessed  the  nobler  elements  of  humanity  in  no 
marked  proportions  ?  But  I  am  glad  to  learn  that  you  are  neither 
"  outcasts  from  society  nor  devoid  of  feeling;"  and  I  shall  en- 
deavor to  treat  you  in  the  course  of  this  controversy  as  men  that 
have  "  discourse  of  reason,"  though  I  plainly  foresee,  that  your 
punctilious  regard  to  "the  rules  of  courtesy"  will  lead  you  to 
condemn  my  severity  of  spirit.  It  is  a  precious  truth  that  my 
judgment  is  not  with  man.  To  employ  soft  and  honeyed  phrases 
in  discussing  questions  of  everlasting  importance — to  deal  with 
errors  that  strike  at  the  foundation  of  all  human  hope,  as  if  they 
were  harmless  and  venial  mistakes — to  bless  where  God  curses. 


12  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  to  make  apologies  where  God  requires  us  to  hate,  though  it 
may  be  the  aptest  method  of  securing  popular  applause  in  a  so- 
phistical age,  is  cruelty  to  man  and  treachery  to  heaven.  Those 
who,  on  such  subjects,  attach  more  importance  to  the  '*  rules  of 
courtesy"  than  the  measures  of  truth,  do  not  defend,  but  betray 
the  citadel  into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  Judas  kissed  his 
Master,  but  it  was  only  to  mark  him  out  for  destruction  ;  the 
Roman  soldiers  saluted  Jesus — Hail  King  of  the  Jews !  but  it 
was  in  grim  and  insulting  mockery.  Charity  for  the  persons 
of  men,  however  corrupt  or  desperately  wicked,  is  a  Christian 
virtue.  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  opinions  and  doctrines  fall  within 
its  province.  On  the  contrary,  I  apprehend  that  our  love  to  the 
souls  of  men  will  be  the  exact  measure  of  our  zeal  in  exposing 
the  dangers  in  which  they  are  ensnared.*  It  is  only  among  those 
who  hardly  admit  the  existence  of  such  a  thing  as  truth — who 
look  upon  all  doctrines  as  equally  involved  in  uncertainty  and 
doubt — among  skeptics,  sophists,  and  calculators,  that  a  gene- 
rous zeal  is  likely  to  be  denounced  as  bigotry,  a  holy  fervency 
of  style  mistaken  for  the  inspiration  of  malice,  and  the  dreary 
indifference  of  Pyrrhonism  confounded  with  true  liberality. — 
Such  men  would  have  condemned  Paul  for  his  withering  rebuke 
to  Elymas  the  Sorcerer,  and  Jesus  Christ  for  his  stern  denuncia- 
tions of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  Surely  if  there  be  any  sub- 
ject which  requires  pungency  of  language  and  severity  of  rebuke, 
it  is  the  "  uncasing  of  a  grand  imposture ;"  if  there  be  any  pro- 

*  "  We  all  know,"  says  Milton,  in  a  passage  which  I  shall  partially  quote, 
**  that  in  private  or  personal  injuries,  yea,  in  public  suffering  for  the  cause  of 
Christ,  his  rule  and  example  teaches  us  to  be  so  far  from  a  readiness  to  speak 
evil,  as  not  to  answer  the  reviler  in  his  language,  though  never  so  much  pro- 
voked ;  yet  in  the  detecting  and  convincing  of  any  notorious  enemy  to  truth 
and  his  country's  peace,  I  suppose,  and  more  than  suppose,  it  will  be  nothing  dis- 
agreeing from  Christian  meekness  to  handle  such  an  one  in  a  rougher  accent, 
and  to  send  home  his  haughtiness  well  bespurted  with  his  own  holy  water. 
Nor  to  do  this  are  we  unauthorized  either  from  the  moral  precept  of  Solomon, 
to  answer  him  thereafter  that  prides  himself  in  his  folly  ;  nor  from  the  example 
of  Christ  and  all  his  followers  in  all  ages,  who,  in  the  refuting  of  those  that  re- 
sisted sound  doctrine  and  by  subtle  dissimulations  corrupted  the  minds  of  men, 
have  wrought  up  their  zealous  souls  into  such  vehemencies  as  n9thing  could  be 
more  killingly  spoken.^' — Animadversions  upon  the  Demonst.  B^ef.  Fref. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED. 


13 


per  object  of  indignation  and  scorn,  "  it  is  a  false  prophet  taken 
in  the  greatest,  dearest,  and  most  dangerous  cheat — the  cheat  of 

souls." 

If  I  know  my  own  heart,  I  am  so  far  from  entertaining  vin- 
dictive feelings  to  the  persons  of  Papists,  that  I  sincerely  deplore 
their  blindness,  and  would   as  cheerfully  accord  to  them  as  any 
other  citizens,   who  have  no  special  claims  upon  me,  the  hospi- 
talities of  life.     It  is  only  in  the  solemn  matters  of  religion,  that 
an  impassable  gulf  is  betwixt  us.     You  apply,  it  is  true,  to  the 
Papal  community,  throughout  your  letters,  (I  have  three  of  them 
now  before  me,)  the  title  of  the  Catholic  Church;   and  perhaps 
one  ground  of  the  offence  that  I  have  given  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  I  have  not  acknowledged,  even  indirectly,  your  arrogant 
pretensions.     Sir,  I  cannot  do  it  until  I  am  prepared  with  you  to 
make  the  word  of  God  of  none  effect  by  vain  and  impious  tradi- 
tions, and  to  belie  the  records  of  authentic  history.     I  say  it  in 
deep  solemnity,  and  with  profound  conviction,  that  so  far  are  you 
from  being  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  that  your   right  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  Church  of  God  at  all  in  any  just  or  scriptural  sense, 
is  exceedingly  questionable.     A  community  which  buries  the 
truth  of  God  under  a  colossal  pile  of  lying  legends,  and  makes 
the  preaching  of  Christ's  pure  Gospel  a  damnable  sin — which 
annuls  the  signs  in  the  holy  sacraments,  and  by  a  mystic  power 
of  sacerdotal  enchantment  pretends  to  bestow  the  invisible  grace 
— which,  instead  of  the  ministry  of  reconciliation,  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  preach  the  word,  cheats  the  nations  with  a  pagan 
priesthood  whose  function  it  is  to  offer  up  sacrifice  for  the  living 
and  the  dead — which,  instead  of  the  pure,  simple,  and  spiritual 
worship  that  constitutes  the  glory  of  the  Christian  Church,  daz- 
zles the  eyes  with  the  gorgeous  solemnities  of  pagan  superstition  ; 
a  community  like  this — and  such  is  the  Church  of  Rome — can 
be  regarded  in  no  other  light  than  as  *'  a  detestable  system  of 
impiety,  cruelty  and  imposture,  fabricated  by  the  father  of  lies." 
Like  the  "  huge  and  monstrous  Wen"  of  which  ancient  story  * 
tells  us,  that  claimed  a  seat,  in  the  council  of  the  body  next  to 
the  head  iiself,  the  constitution  of  the  Papacy  is  an  enormous 

*  See  the  story  told  in  Milton,  Refomi.  in  Eng.  b.  ii. 


14  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

excrescence  which  has  grown  from  the  Church  of  Christ,  and 
which  when  opened  and  dissected  by  the  implements  of  Divine 
truth,  is  found  to  be  but  a  "  heap  of  hard  and  loathsome  unclean- 
ness — a  foul  disfigurement  and  burden."  The  Christian  world 
was  justly  indignant  with  the  fraternal  address  which  English 
Socinians  submitted  "to  the  Ambassador  of  the  mighty  Emperor 
of  Fez  and  Morocco"  at  the  Court  of  Charles  the  Second  * 
But  their  own  spurious  charity  to  Papists  is  a  no  less  treacher- 
ous betrayal  of  the  cause  of  truth.  What  claims  have  Roman 
Catholics  to  be  regarded  as  Christians,  which  may  not  be  pleaded 
with  equal  propriety  in  behalf  of  the  Mahometans?  Is  it  that 
Rome  professes  to  receive  the  word  of  God  as  contained  in  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  1  The  false  Prophet 
of  Arabia  makes  the  same  pretension.  Assisted  in  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Koran  by  an  apostate  Jew  and  a  renegado  Christian, 
he  has  given  a  lodgment  to  almost  every  heresy  which  had  in- 
fected the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  rude  and  chaotic  mass  of 
fraud  and  imposture.  Professing  to  receive  the  Bible,  he  makes 
it  of  none  effect  by  his  additions  to  its  teaching.  The  real  creed 
of  Mahometans  has  no  countenance  from  Scripture.  It  is  on 
the  ground  that  3Iahomet  makes  void  the  word  of  God  by  his  pre- 
tended Revelations,  that  he  is  treated  by  the  Christian  world  as  a 
blasphemer  and  impostor.  Has  not  Rome  equally  silenced  the 
oracles  of  God  in  the  din  and  clatter  of  a  thousand  wicked  tra- 
ditions? Her  7'eal  creed — that  which  gives  form  and  body  to 
the  system — which  is  proposed  alike  as  the  rule  of  the  living  and 
the  hope  of  the  dying — is  not  only  not  to  be  found  in  the  Bible, 
but  contradicts  every  distinctive  principle  of  the  glorious  Gospel 
of  God's  grace.  If  Mahometans  justify  the  heterogeneous  addi- 
tions of  their  Prophet  to  the  acknowledged  revelation  of  Heaven, 
by  pretending  that  the  Bible  is  imperfect,  and  consequently,  inade- 
quate as  a  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  how  much  better  is  the  con- 
duct of  Rome  in  reference  to  the  same  matter?  She  may  not 
assume  with  Mahomet  that  the  Scriptures  have  been  corrupted, 
but  she  does  assume  that  the  Scriptures  are  not  what  God  de- 
clares that  they  are — able  not  only  to  make  us  wise  unto  salvation, 

See  Leslie's  Socinian  Controversy.     For  the  authenticity  of  this  address 
see  Horsely's  Tracts  in  controversy  with  Dr.  Priestly. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  15 

but  to  make  *'  the  man  of  God  perfect,  thoroughly  furnished  unto 
every  good  work."*  Again,  Rome's  bulwark  is  tradition.  Ma- 
homet, however,  far  outstrips  her  in  this  matter,  and  appeals  to 
a  tradition  preserved  by  the  descendants  of  Ishmael  that  reaches 
back  to  the  time  of  Abraham. 

So  also  in  the  article  of  infallibility  and  authoritative  teach- 
ing, the  Arabian  impostor  and  the  Roman  harlot  stand  on  sim- 
ilar ground.  The  doctrines  of  the  Koran  are  announced  with 
no  other  evidence  than  the  avxoi;  icfi]  of  the  master — and  the 
Edicts  of  Trent  claim  to  bind  the  world,  because  they  are  the 
Edicts  of  Trent.  In  one  respect  the  religion  of  Mahomet  is 
purer  than  that  of  Rome — it  is  free  from  idolatry.  There  is  in 
it  no  approximation  to  what  Gibbon  calls  the  "  elegant  mythology 
of  Greece." 

Mahometanism  and  Popery  are,  in  truth,  successive  evolutions 
in  a  great  and  comprehensive  plan  of  darkness,  conceived  by  a 
master  mind  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  kingdom  of  light, 
and  perpetuating  the  reign  of  death.  For  centuries  of  ignorance 
and  guilt,  the  god  of  this  world  possessed  a  consolidated  empire 
in  the  unbroken  dominion,  among  all  the  nations  but  one,  of 
pagan  idolatry.  This  was  the  grand  enemy  of  Christ  in  the 
Apostolic  age.  When  this  fabric,  however,  in  the  provinces  of 
ancient  Rome  tottered  to  its  fall,  with  his  characteristic  subtlety 
and  fraud,  the  Great  Deceiver,  according  to  the  predictions  of 
Prophets  and  Apostles,  began  another  structure  in  the  corruption 
of  the  Gospel  itself,  which  should  be  equally  imposing  and  more 
fatal,  because  it  pretended  a  reverence  for  truth.  Under  the 
plausible  and  sanctimonious  pretexts  of  superior  piety  and  extra- 
ordinary zeal,  the  simple  institutions  of  the  Gospel  were  gradu- 
ally undermined — errors,  one  by  one,  were  imperceptibly  intro- 
duced— the  circle  of  darkness  continued  daily  to  extend,  until, 
in  an  age  of  profound  slumber,  through  the  deep  machinations 
of  the  wicked  one,  the  foundations  of  the  Papacy  were  securely 
laid.  The  Temple  of  the  Western  Antichrist,  erected  on  the 
ruinsof  Christianity  in  the  bounds  of  the  Roman  See,  and  requir- 
ing, as  it  did,  the  corruptions  of  ages  to  prepare,  cement,  and 

*•  2  Tim.  3.  17. 


16  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

consolidate  its  parts,  owes  its  compactness  of  form  and  harmoni- 
ous proportions  to  the  profound  policy  and  consummate  skill  of 
the  enemy  of  souls.  As  left  by  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Papal 
Church  stands  completely  accoutred  in  the  panoply  of  darkness 
— the  grand  instrument  of  Satan  in  the  West  as  Mahometanism 
in  the  East — to  oppose  the  Kingdom  of  God.*  The  lights  are 
now  extinguished  on  the  altar — those  in  her,  but  not  of  her,  who 
have  any  lingering  reverence  for  God  are  required  to  abandon 
her — her  gorgeous  forms  and  imposing  ceremonies,  are  only  the 
funeral  rites  of  religion — the  life,  spirit,  and  glory  have  departed. 
Entertaining,  as  I  do,  these  convictions  in  regard  to  the  Papal 
community,  I  shall  not  pretend  to  sentiments  which  as  a  man 
I  ought  not  to  cherish,  and  as  a  Christian  I  dare  not  tolerate. 
Peace  with  Rome  is  rebellion  against  God.  My  love  to  Him,  to 
His  Church,  His  truth,  and  the  eternal  interests  of  men,  will  for- 
ever prevent  me — even  indirectly  by  a  mawkish  liberality  which 
can  exist  only  in  words — from  bidding  God -speed  to  this  Baby- 
lonish merchant  of  souls.  But  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  under- 
stood that  my  most  unsparing  denunciations  of  doctrines  and 
practices  which  seem  to  me  to  lead  directly  to  the  gates  of  death, 
are  not  to  be  construed  into  dipersonal  abuse  of  the  Papists  them- 
selves. Little  as  they  believe  it,  I  would  gladly  save  them  from 
the  awful  doom  of  an  apostate  church. 

With  these  general  explanations  of  the  spirit  by  which  I  am 
and  shall  continue  to  be  actuated,  I  shall  pass  on  to  make  a  few 
remarks  in  vindication  of  the  expressions  at  which  you  have 
taken  offence,  as  indicating  ill  feelings  on  my  part,  and  "  with 
which  even  in  quotations  you  are  unwilling  to  sully  your  pen." 
These  expressions,  you  will  excuse  me  for  saying,  are  perfectly 
proper. 

Protestants  designate  their  own  churches  by  terms  descrip- 
tive of  their  peculiar  forms  of  government,  or  the  distinctive 
doctrines  they  profess.  Some  are  called  Presbyterians,  and 
some  Prelatists,  some  Calvinists,  and  others  Arminians.  You 
acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope — this  is  a  distinctive 
feature  of  your  system — where  then  is  the  ground  of  offence  in 

*  The  doctrine  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin  is  supposed  to 
be  derived  from  the  Koran.     See  Gibbon,  p.  310,  vol.  vi. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  17 

applying  to  you  a  term,  or  as  you  choose  to  call  it,  a  "vulgar 
epithet,"  which  exactly  describes  a  characteristic  principle  of 
your  sect  ? 

Then  again,  as  to  the  phrases  *'  vassals  of  Rome,"  and  *'  cap- 
tives to  the  car  of  Rome,"  they  are  really  the  least  offensive 
terms  in  which  your  relations  to  the  Papal  See,  as  set  forth  in 
standard  writers  of  your  own  Church,  can  be  expressed.  You 
must  be  aware,  sir,  or  you  would  hardly  venture  to  assume  with 
so  much  confidence  the  air  of  a  scholar,  that  the  word  vassal 
was  employed  by  our  earlier  writers  as  equivalent  to  a  man  of 
valor,  and  was  far  from  conveying  a  reproachful  meaning. 
**  The  word,"  says  Richardson,  **  is,  indeed,  evidently  as  much 
a  term  of  honor  as  knighthood  was."  It  is  certainly  a  softer 
term  than  slave,  which,  according  to  Cicero's  definition  of  servi- 
tude— "  obedientia  fracti  animi  et  abjecti  et  arbitrio  carentis 
suo'** — seems  to  be  more  exactly  adapted  to  describe  your  state. 
Captivity  to  Christ  is  the  glory  of  a  Christian,  and  as  the  voice 
of  Rome  is  to  you  the  word  of  the  Lord,  I  do  not  see  why  you 
should  object  to  being  called  ''  captives  to  the  car  of  Rome."  I 
am  afraid,  sir,  that  the  real  harm  of  these  words  is  not  to  be 
found  in  their  vulgarity  and  coarseness,  but  in  the  unpalatable 
truth  which  they  contain.  If  there  were  no  sore,  there  would  be 
no  shrinking  beneath  the  probe.  As  to  my  "  mocking  language 
concerning  the  awful  mystery  of  transubstantiation,"  I  am  not 
yet  persuaded  that  there  is  any  other  mystery  in  this  huge  ab- 
surdity, but  "the  mystery  of  iniquity."  To  you,  sir,  it  may  be 
aioful — so  no  doubt  were  calves  and  apes  to  their  Egyptian  wor- 
shippers. 

I.  Your  letters  contain,  or  profess  to  contain,  an  explanation 
of  what  the  Council  of  Trent  actually  did  in  regard  to  the  Canon 
of  Scripture — a  vindication  of  its  conduct,  and  a  labored  reply 
to  my  short  arguments  against  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha. 
In  other  words,  they  naturally  divide  themselves  into  three  parts 
— a  statement,  the  proof,  and  refutation — of  each  in  its  order. 

In  your  statement  of  what  the  Council  did,  you  have  given  us 
a  definition  of  the  word   Canont  which,  as  it  adequately  repre- 

*   Cicero  ParadoxoUjV.  i. 

t  "  A  Canon  I  have   always  understood  to  be  a  list  or  catalogue,  setting 

2* 


18  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

sents  neither  ancient  nor  modern  usage — the  term  not  being,  as 
you  seem  to  imply,  univocal — may  be  regarded  as  an  humbling 
confession  of  your  own  ignorance.  If,  sir,  you  "  have  always 
understood  the  word  "  in  the  sense  which  you  assign  to  it,  your 
acquaintance  wnth  the  early  Ecclesiastical  writers  is  so  manifestly 
limited  as  to  create  a  very  strong  suspicion  that,  with  all  your 
parade  of  learning,  you  have  been  little  more  than  the  ferret 
and  mouse-hunt  of  an  index.  As  I  shall  have  occasion,  in  an- 
other part  of  this  discussion,  to  revert  to  this  subject  again,  it 
will  be  sufficient  for  my  present  purpose  to  observe  that,  in  the 
modern  acceptation  of  the  term,  the  Scriptures  are  not  called 
canonical  because  they  are  found  in  any  given  catalogue,  but 
because  they  are  authoritative  as  a  rule  of  faith.  The  common 
metaphorical  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  huvmv  is  a  rule  or 
measure.  In  this  sense  it  is  used  by  the  classical  writers  of 
antiquity,*  as  well  as  by  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. t 
Whether  found  in  a  catalogue  or  not,  if  the  inspiration  of  a 
book  can  be  adequately  determined,  it  possesses,  at  once,  canoni- 
cal authority.  It  becomes,  as  far  as  it  goes,  a  standard  of 
faith.  And  with  all  due  deference,  sir,  to  your  superior  facili- 
ties for  understanding  aright  the  decisions  of  your  Church,  you 
will  permit  me  to  declare  that  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  you 
so  much  venerate,  in  pronouncing  the  Apocrypha  canonical, 
either  employed  the  term  in  the  sense  which  I  have  indicated, 
and  made  these  books  an  authoritative  rule  of  faith^  or  was 
guilty  of  a  degree  of  folly,  which,  with  all  my  contempt  for  the 
character  of  its  members,  I  am  unwilling  to  impute  to  them. 
You  inform  us,  sir,  that  a  book  is  to  be  regarded  as  sacred 
because  it  is  inspired ;  but  that  no  book,  whatever  be  its  origin, 
is  to  be  received  as  canonical  until  it  is  inserted  in  some  existing 

forth  what  books  are  inspired,  not  giving  or  dispensing  inspiration  to  unin- 
spired books.  A  work  to  be  entitled  to  a  place  in  a  Canon,  must  be  believed 
to  have  been  always  inspired  ;  and  if  believed  to  have  been  inspired  at  any  one 
period,  it  must  be  believed  to  have  always  been  inspired.  Until  a  Canon  is 
formed,  a  catalogue  of  inspired  books  drawn  up,  manifestly  though  many  works 
may  be  sacred  because  inspired,  none  can  be  canonical,  because  none  can  be 
inserted  in  a  catalogue  which  does  not  yet  exist." — Letter  I. 

*  Aristotle  Polit.  lib.  ii.  cap.  8.    Eurip.  Hec.  602. 

t  Gal.  6.  16.     Phil.  3.  16. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  19 

catalogue.  With  this  key  to  the  interpretation  of  its  language, 
the  Council  of  Trent*  has  pronounced  its  anathema  not  only 
on  the  man  who  refuses  to  receive  these  hooks  as  inspired,  but 
also  on  him  who  does  not  believe  that  they  are  found  in  a  cata- 
logue. He  is  as  much  bound,  on  pain  of  what  you  interpret  to 
be  excommunication,  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  list  of 
inspired  books,  as  he  is  to  believe  in  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
books  themselves.  It  is  not  enough  for  him  to  know  that  the 
various  documents  which  compose  the  Bible  were  written  by 
men  whose  minds  were  guided  by  the  Holy  Ghost, — he  must 
also  know  that  a  body  of  men  in  some  quarter  of  the  world  has 
actually  inserted  the  names  of  these  books  in  a  catalogue  or  list. 
*'  Risum  teneatis,  amici !" 

Now,  sir,  to  borrow  an  illustration  from  your  favorite  quar- 
ter— suppose  one  of  our  slaves  should  be  converted  to  Popery, 
that  is,  should  receive  as  true  all  the  dogmas  that  the  Priests 
inculcate,  and  yet  be  ignorant  that  such  a  learned  body  as  the 
Council  of  Trent  had  ever  been  convened,  or,  what  is  no  un- 
common thing  among  you,  be  profoundly  ignorant  that  such  a 
book  as  the  Bible  exists  at  all,  would  he  be  danmed?  To  say 
nothing  of  his  not  receiving  the  Scriptures  under  such  circum- 
stances as  sacred,  he  most  assuredly  does  not  receive  them  as 
canonical  in  your  sense.  He  knows  nothing  of  a  list  or  cata- 
logue in  which  these  books  are  enumerated.  It  is  an  idle 
equivocation  to  say  that  the  curse  has  reference  only  to  those 
who  know  the  existence  of  the  catalogue.  In  that  case  the 
sin  which  is  condemned,  is  evidently  a  sheer  mpossibility 
except  to  a  man  who  was  stark  mad.  To  know  that  a  catalogue 
is  composed  of  certain  books,  and  this  is  the  only  way  of  know- 
ing it  as  a  catalogue,  and  yet  not  to  believe  that  the  books  are 
in  it,  is  a  mental  contradiction  which  can  only  be  received 
by  those  whose  capacious  understandings  can  digest  the  mystery 
of  transubstantiation. 

*  "  Now  if  any  one  does  not  receive  as  sacred  and  canonical  those  books 
entire  with  all  their  parts,  as  they  have  been  usually  read  in  the  Catholic 
Church  and  are  found  in  the  old  Latin  Vulgate  edition  ;  and  shall  knowingly 
and  industriously  contemn  the  aforesaid  traditions :  let  him  be  anathema." — 
Letter  I. 


20  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

According  to  your  statement,  the  venerable  Fathers  assem- 
bled at  Trent  did  three  things : — 1.  They  decided  what  books 
were  inspired — 2.  They  arranged  them  in  a  list — and  3.  They 
excommunicated  all  those  heretics  who  would  not  receive  both 
books  and  list.  In  my  humble  opinion,  however,  the  Holy  Fa- 
thers declared  what  books  they  received  as  sacred  and  authorita- 
tive in  matters  of  faith,  and  pronounced  their  curse  upon  those 
who  did  not  acknowledge  the  same  rule  with  themselves.  I  shall 
quote  from  the  decree  itself,  in  your  own  beautiful  and  accurate 
translation,  a  sentence  which  shows  that  your  sense  of  the  term 
canonical  was  foreign  from  their  thoughts.  "  It  has,  moreover, 
thought  proper  to  annex  to  this  decree  a  catalogue  of  the  sacred 
books,  lest  any  doubt  might  arise  which  are  the  books  received 
by  this  Council."  You  will  find  on  recurring  to  the  original, 
that  the  word  which  you  have  rendered  catcdogue  is  not  cajiona, 
but  indicem.  Again,  sir,  as  the  Fathers  are  said  to  receive  these 
books  before  their  own  list  is  made,  how  did  they  do  it? — Evi- 
dently in  the  same  way,  unless  there  be  one  sort  of  faith  for  the 
people  and  another  for  divines,  in  which  they  required  others  to 
receive  them,  that  is,  as  sacred  and  canonical.  But  the  preced- 
ing part  of  the  decree  contains  not  a  word  about  the  existence 
of  former  catalogues ,  though  it  is  particular  to  insert  the  inspi- 
ration of  these  books  as  well  as  of  tradition  as  the  ground  of  their 
reception,  maintaining,  at  the  same  time,  that  they  were,  if  not 
the  rule,  at  least  what  is  equivalent  to  it,  the  source  (fontem)  of 
every  saving  truth  and  of  moral  discipline.  Hence  in  the  sense 
of  Trent  to  be  sacred  and  canonical,  "  is  to  be  inspired  as  a  rule 
oi  faith." 

After  this  specimen  of  your  skill  in  the  art  of  definitions, 
we  are  not  to  be  astonished  at  still  more  marvellous  achieve- 
ments in  the  way  of  translation.  The  following  words,  clear 
and  explicit  in  themselves,  "  pari  pietatis  aifectu  ac  reverentia 
suscipit  et  veneratur,"  I  find  are  rendered  by  you  in  English, 
hardly  less  equivocal  than  the  language  of  an  ancient  oracle.* 


*  "  Receives  with  due  piety  and  reverence  and  venerates."  The  same  blun- 
der is  found  in  the  translation  of  this  decree  prefixed  to  the  Doway  version  of 
the  Scriptures. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  21 

Sir,  to  say  nothing  of  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  words,  as 
it  might  be  gathered  from  a  Lexicon,  if  you  had  read  the  debates 
of  the  Council  even  in  your  own  Jesuit  historian,  Pallavicino* 

*  "  Deinde  quo  res  per  futuram  Sessionem  statuendae  discutiuntur,  idem 
Legatus  exposuit :  Optimum  sibi  facta  videri,  ut  primo  loco  recenserentur  ac  reci- 
perentur  libri  Canonici  sacrarum  Literarum,  quo  certo  constaret,  gMzius  armis 
esset  in  haereticos  dimicandum,  et  in  qua  basifundanda  esset  Fides  Catholi- 
coruni ;  quorum  aliqui  superare  misere  angebantur,  cum  cernerent  in  eodem 
libro  a  plurimis  Spiritus  digitum  adorari,  alios  contra  digitum  impostoris  execrari. 
Hoc  statuto  tria  in  peculiaribus  coetibus  proposita  sunt.  Primum,  an  omnia 
utriusque  testamenti  volumina  essent  comprobanda.  Alterum,  an  ea  compro- 
batio  per  novum  examen  peragenda  :  tertium  a  Bertano  ac  Seripando  proposi- 
tum,  an  expediret  sacros  libros  in  duas  classes  partiri :  alteram  eorum  quae  ad 
promovendam  populi  pietatem  pertinent,  et  illius  ergo  solum  ab  Ecclesia  re- 
cepti  tamquam  boni,  cujusmodi  videbantur  esse  Proverbiorum  et  Sapientiae  libri, 
nondum  ab  Ecclesia  probati  tamquam  Canonici,  tametsifrequens  eorum  mentio 
haberetur  facta  apud  Hieronymum  et  Augustinum,  aliosque  veteres  auctores; 
alteram  eorum,  quibus  etiam  fidei  dogmata  inniluntur.  Sed  ea  divisio,  tametsi 
ab  aliquo  auctore  prius  facta,  et  tunc  a  Seripando  promota  per  libellum  eruditissi- 
mum  ea  gratia  conscriptum,  quo  cuncti  libri  Canonici  rite  experentur,  uti  reve- 
ra  firmam  rationem  non  praeferebat,  ita  nee  sua  specie  Patres  allexit,  vix  nacta 
laudatorem :  quare  nihil  ultra  de  ilia  disputabimus."  Pallavicino,  Hist.  Cone. 
Trident,  lib.  vi.  cap.  11. 

"  How  the  business  to  be  transacted  by  the  approaching  session  should  be  dis- 
cussed, was  explained  by  the  same  legate.  It  seemed  to  him  most  advisable  that 
the  canonical  books  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  should  be  in  the  first  place  enumer- 
ated and  received,  so  that  it  might  be  certainly  understood,  with  what  weapons 
they  were  to  fight  the  heretics,  and  on  what  basis  the  Catholic  faith  should  be 
founded.  In  regard  to  this  matter,  some  were  miserably  perplexed,  since  they 
perceived  that,  in  the  same  book,  many  adored  the  hand  of  the  Spirit,  while 
others  detected  the  hand  of  an  impostor.  Three  propositions  were  before  the  com- 
mittees: 1.  Whether  all  the  books  of  each  Testament  should  be  approved.  2. 
Whether  the  approbation  should  be  given  upon  a  new  examination  to  be  gone 
through.  3.  The  third  proposition  was  that  of  Bertan  and  Seripand,  whether  it 
would  be  better  to  distribute  the  sacred  books  into  two  classes,  the  first  em- 
bracing those  that  were  received  by  the  church  on  account  of  their  subserviency 
to  the  piety  of  the  people,  (of  which  sort  were  Proverbs  and  Wisdom,)  but  which 
were  not  allowed  to  be  inserted  in  the  canon,  though  frequently  mentioned  by 
Jerome,  Augustine,  and  other  ancient  writers.  The  other  class  embracing  those 
upon  which  the  doctrines  of  the  faith  depend.  This  division,  however,  into  two 
classes,  though  it  had  been  previously  made  by  a  certain  autlior,  and  was  then 
learnedly  promoted  by  Seripand  in  a  work  written  with  the  view  of  setting  all 
the  books  of  the  canon  in  their  proper  light,  was  supported  by  no  good  reason, 
and  found  so  little  favor  that  it  obtained  scarcely  a  single  vote." 


22  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

you  would  have  learned,  what  you  seem  not  now  to  know,  that 
it  was  the  intention  of  the  Fathers  in  this  famous  decree  to  place 
the  Apocrypha  and  unwritten  traditions  upon  a  footing  of  equal 
authority  with  the  book  which  the  Lutherans  acknowledged  as 
inspired.  —  Their  object  was  to  give  their  canon  or  rule  of  faith. 
Determined  as  the  Pope  and  his  legates  were  to  suppress  the 
Reformation,  which  had  then  been  successfully  begun,  and  to 
perpetuate  the  atrocious  abuses  of  the  Roman  Court,  they  com- 
menced the  work  of  death  by  poisoning  the  waters  of  life  at  the 
fountain.  In  the  sentence  immediately  succeeding  the  anath- 
ema, we  are  given  to  understand  that  the  preliminary  measures 
in  reference  to  faith  were  designed  to  indicate  the  manner  in 
which  the  subsequent  proceedings  of  the  Council  touching 
questions  of  doctrine  and  order  should  be  conducted.  They 
settled  the  proofs  and  authorities — to  which  in  all  their  future 
deliberations  they  intended  to  appeal.  As  Luther  was  to  be 
crushed,  and  as  the  armory  of  God's  word  furnished  no  weapons 
with  which  this  incorrigible  heretic  could  be  convicted  of  error, 
a  stronger  bulwark  must  needs  be  raised  to  protect  the  abuses 
and  cover  the  corruptions  of  ihe  Church  of  Rome.  You  can- 
not be  ignorant,  sir,  that  much  difficulty  was  felt  by  the  Council 
in  settling  the  list  of  Canonical  books.*  It  was  not  prepared  at 
once  to  outrage  truth  and   history  by  making  that  divine,  which 

*  "  Some  thought  fit  to  establish  three  ranks.  The  first,  of  those  which 
have  been  always  held  as  divine  ;  the  second,  of  those  whereof  sometimes  doubt 
hath  been  made,  but  by  use  have  obtained  canonical  authority,  in  which  num- 
ber are  the  six  Epistles,  and  the  Apocalypse  of"  the  New  Testament,  and  some 
small  parts  of  the  Evangelists.  The  third,  of  those  whereof  there  hath  never 
been  any  assurance  ;  as  are  the  seven  of  the  Old  Testament  and  some  chapters 
of  Daniel  and  Esther.  Some  thought  it  better  to  make  no  distinction  at  all,  but 
to  imitate  the  Council  of  Carthage  and  others,  making  the  catalogue,  and  say- 
ing no  more.  Another  opinion  was  that  all  of  them  should  be  declared  to  be  in 
all  parts,  as  they  are  in  the  Latin  Bible,  of  Divine  and  equal  authority.  The 
book  of  Baruc  troubled  them  most,  which  is  not  put  in  the  number,  neither  by 
the  Laodicians,  nor  by  those  of  Carthage,  nor  by  the  Pope,  and  therefore  should 
be  left  out,  as  well  for  this  reason,  as  because  the  beginning  of  it  cannot  be 
found.  But  because  it  was  read  in  the  Church,  the  congregation,  esteeming 
this  a  potent  reason,  resolved  that  it  was,  by  the  ancients,  accounted  a  part  of 
Jeremy  and  comprised  with  him." — Father  Faul,  pp.  142,  143. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  23 

the  Church  of  God  had  never  received  as  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.     But,  sir,  without    the  Apocrypha   and   unwritten   tradi- 
tion, the  Holy  Fathers  were  unable  to  construct  an  embankment 
sufficient  to  roll  back  the  cleansing  tide  of  life  which   Luther 
was  endeavoring  to  pour  into  the  Augean  stable  of  Papal  impu- 
rity and  filth.     The  awful   plunge  was  consequently  taken,  and 
these  spurious  books  and  lying  legends  were  made  standards  of 
faith  of  equal  authority  with  God's  holy  word.     Inspired  Scrip- 
ture, apocryphal  productions,  and  unwritten   traditions  were  not 
only  received  with  due  piety  and  reverence,  as  you  would  have 
us  to  believe,  but  were  received  with  equal  piety  and  veneration, 
as  the  decree  itself  asserts.     This,  sir,  is  what  Trent  did — and 
until  it  can  be  shown  that  all  these  elements  of  Papal  faith  are 
really  entitled  to  the  same  degree   of  authority  and   esteem — 
that  they  are  all,  in  other  words,  equally  inspired — my  charge  of 
intolerable  arrogance  remains  unanvswered  against  the  Church  of 
Rome.     I  said,  and  repeat  the  accusation,  that  she  made  that 
divine,   which  is  notoriously  human,  and   that  inspired,  which, 
in  the  sense  of  the  Apostle,   is  notoriously  of  private   interpre- 
tation.''    I  did  not  impeach  the  Council  for   having  presumed 
to  draw  up  a  catalogue  of  sacred   and   canonical   books — but  I 
did  impeach  it  and  do  still  impeach  it  of  one  of  the  most  awful 
crimes  which  a  mortal  can  commit,  in  having  solemnly  declared 
**  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  when  the  Lord  had  neither  spoken  nor 
sent  them.      The  insulted  nations,  heart-sick  with  abuses,  were 
looking,  with  the  anxiety  of  a  dying  man,  for  the  sovereign  rem- 
edy which   it   was   confidently   hoped   would    be   prepared   and 
administered  by  this  long-looked  for  assembly  of  spiritual  physi- 
cians ;  but   when  the  day  of  their   redemption,  as   they  fondly 
dreamed,  had  at  length  arrived,  and  the  cup  of  blessing  was  put 
to  their   lips — behold !   instead  of  the  promised  cure,  a  deadly 
mixture  of  hemlock  and  nightshade !     Five  crafty  cardinals  and 
a  few  dozen  prelates   from   Spain  and  Italy,  called   together  by 
the  authority  of  the  Pope,  and  acting  in   slavish  subjection  to 
his  sovereign  will,  as  if  the  measure  of  their  iniquity  was  now 
full,  and  the  hour  of  their  final  and  complete  infatuation  had  at 
length    arrived,  proceeded,  with  the  daring  desperation  of  men 
bereft  of  shame  and  abandoned  of  God,  to  collect  the  accumu- 


24  ROMANIST    ARGUiMENTS    FOR    THE 

lated  errors  of  ages  into  one  enormous  pile,  and  to  send  forth, 
as  if  from  the  "  boiling  alembic  of  hell,"  the  blackening  vapors 
of  death  to  obscure  the  dawning  light,  to  cover  the  earth  with 
darkness,  and  involve  the  people  in  despair.  Where  were  truth 
and  decency,  sir,  when  this  miserable  cabal*  of  scrambling 
politicians  claimed  to  represent  the  universal  Church  1  Is  it 
not  notorious  that  when  the  canon  of  your  faith  was  settled, 
even  Papal  Europe  was  so  poorly  represented  that  not  a  single 
deputy  was  found  in  the  Council  from  whole  nations  that  it 
assumed  to  govern?  Its  pretensions,  too,  to  be  guided  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  when  its  whole  history  attests  that  the  spirit  of  the 
Pope   was  the   presiding  spirit    of  the  body,  afford  "  damning 

*  When  we  call  to  mind  the  arts  and  subterfuges  by  which  the  Court  of 
Rome  endeavored  to  evade  the  necessity  of  calling  a  Council — its  long  delays, 
while  gi'oaning  Europe  was  clamoring  for  reform — its  wily  manoeuvres,  when 
the  necessity  at  last  became  inevitable,  to  have  the  Council  under  its  own  con- 
trol— the  crafty  policy  by  which  it  succeeded — when  we  look  at  these  things, 
and  whoever  has  read  the  History  of  Europe  during  that  period  cannot  be 
Ignorant  of  them — the  language  of  the  text  "  cannot  be  deemed  too  severe." 
The  Council  was  evidently  a  mere  tool  of  the  Pope.  The  following  extracts, 
one  from  Robertson,  the  other  from  Father  Paul,  (a  Papist  himself,)  may  be 
taken  as  an  offset  to  the  testimony  of  Hallam — and  a  flat  contradiction  to  "  A. 
P.  F.'s"  account  of  the  learning  of  the  body. 

"  But  whichever  of  these  authors,"  says  Robertson,  referring  to  the  histo- 
ries of  Father  Paul,  Palla\'icino  and  Vargas,  "  whichever  of  these  authors  an 
intelligent  person  takes  for  his  guide,  in  forming  a  judgment  concerning  the 
Spirit  of  the  Council,  he  must  discover  so  much  ambition  as  well  as  artifice 
among  some  of  the  members,  so  much  ignorance  and  conniption  among  others  ; 
he  must  observe  such  a  large  infusion  of  human  policy  and  passions,  mingled 
with  such  a  scanty  portion  of  that  simplicity  in  heart,  sanctity  of  manners,  and 
love  of  truth,  which  alone  qualify  men  to  determine  what  doctrines  are  worthy  of 
God,  and  what  worship  is  acceptable  to  h'm,  that  he  will  find  it  no  easy  matter 
to  believe  that  an  extraordinary  influence  of  the  Holy  Ghost  hovered  over  this 
assembly  and  dictated  its  decrees." — Charles   V.  vol.  iii.  b.  x.  p.  400. 

"  Neither  was  there  amongst  those  Prelates  any  one  remarkable  for  learn- 
ing :  some  of  them  were  lawyers,  perhaps  learned  in  that  profession,  but  of  lit- 
tle understanding  in  religion  ;  few  divines  but  of  less  than  ordinary  sufficiency  ; 
the  greater  number  gentlemen  or  courtiers  ;  and  for  their  dignities  some  were 
only  titular  and  the  major  part  Bishops  of  so  small  cities,  that  supposing  every 
one  to  represent  his  people,  it  could  not  be  said  that  one  of  a  thousand  in  Chris- 
tendom was  represented.  But  particularly  of  Germany  there  was  not  so  much 
as  one  Bishop  or  divine." — Father  Paul,  p.  153. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  25 

proof"  that  it  was  given  up  to  "  hardness  of  heart  and  reprobacy 
of  mind."  You  have  favored  us,  sir,  with  an  extract  from 
Hallam,  which  I  shall  not  crave  pardon  for  asserting  is  entitled 
to  about  as  much  respect  as  his  discriminating  censures  of 
Pindar's  Greek.  I  am  surprised,  sir,  that  you  should  have 
ventured  to  commend  the  learning  of  the  Fathers  of  Trent. 
The  matter  can  easily  be  settled  by  an  appeal  to  facts.  Cajetan 
was  reputed  to  be  the  most  eminent  man  among  them,  "  unto 
whom,"  says  Father  Paul,  "  there  was  no  'prelate  or  person  in 
the  Council  who  would  not  yield  in  learning,  or  thought  himself 
too  good  to  learn  of  him  ;"*  yet,  with  all  his  learning,  he  knew 
not  a  word  of  Hebrew.  What  divine  of  the  present  day  would 
be  deemed  a  scholar  at  all,  who  could  not  read  the  Scriptures  in 
the  original  tongues  ?  When  the  question  of  the  authenticity 
of  the  Vulgate  was  under  discussion  in  the  Council,  what  a 
holy  horror  was  displayed  of  Grammarians  !  what  shocking  alarm 
lest  the  dignities  of  the  Church  should  be  given  to  Pedants, 
instead  of  Divines  and  Canonists?!  Sir — why  this  dread  of 
the  Hehreiv  and  Greek  originals  if  your  pastors  and  teachers 
could  read  them  ?  Is  it  not  a  shrewd  presumption  that  you 
made  the  Bible  authentic  in  a  tongue  which  you  could  read, 
because  God  thad  made  it  authentic  in  tongues  which  you  could 
not  read  ?     So  much  for  the  learning  of  these  venerable  men. 

II.  Having  sufficiently  shown  that  your  statement  is  a  series  of 
blunders,  and  your  eulogy  on  the  Council  wholly  unfounded,  l  pro- 
ceed to  your  proof.  The  point  which  you  propose  to  establish  is, 
that  the  Apocrypha  were  given  by  inspiration  of  God.  You  un- 
dertake to  furnish  that  positive  proof  which  I  had  demanded,  and 
without  which  I  had  asserted  that  no  moral  obligation  could  exist 
to  receive  them.  Before,  however,  you  proceed  to  exhibit  your 
argument,  you  step  aside  for  a  moment  to  show  us  the  extent  of 
your  learning  in  regard  to  the  disputes  which  at  various  times 
have  been  agitated  touching  the  books  that  should  be  received  as 
inspired.  Sir,  the  object  of  such  statements  is  obvious — you  wish 
to  create  the  impression  that  the  whole  subject  of  the  canon  is  in- 
volved in  inextricable  confusion,  and  that  the  only  asylum  for  the 

*  Page  145.         t  Father  Paul,  page  146. 


S6  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

doubting  and  distressed — -the  only  place  in  which  the  truth  can 
be  found  and  perplexities  resolved,  is  the  bosom  of  your  own  com- 
munion. In  your  zeal,  sir,  to  represent  Protestants  as  without  any 
solid  foundations  for  their  faith,  it  would  be  well  to  confine  your- 
self to  statements  better  supported  than  some  that  you  have 
made.  That  the  Sadducees,  as  a  sect,  rejected  all  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  with  the  exception  of  the  Pentateuch,  is  certainly 
not  to  be  received  upon  the  conjectures  of  the  Fathers  against  the 
violent  improbabilities  which  press  the  assertion — improbabilities 
so  violent  that  with  all  his  regard  for  the  Fathers,  Basnage*  has 
been  compelled  to  soften  down  the  proposition  into  the  milder 
statement  that  this  skeptical  sect  only  attributed  greater  author- 
ity to  the  writings  of  Moses  than  to  the  rest  of  the  canon.  If  by 
the  Alhigenses  you  mean  the  Paulicians,  you  can  know  but  little 
about  them  except  what  you  have  gathered  from  their  bitter  and 
implacable  enemies.  The  documents  of  their  faith  have  all  per- 
ished. You  cannot  be  ignorant,  however,  that  Protestant  divines 
have  constructed  a  strong  argument  from  the  very  nature  of  their 
oriorin,  to  rebut  the  assertion  which  you  have  ventured  to  assume 
as  true.  Really,  sir,  when  I  consider  your  wonderful  ability  in 
giving  definitions  and  translating  from  Latin,  and  join  to  these 
your  profound  acquaintance  with  ecclesiastical  antiquity,  I  may 
well  tremble  to  encounter  so  formidable  an  opponent  in  the  field 
of  Dialectics.     Upon  this  arena  we  are  now  to  meet. 


LETTER    11. 

Dr.  Lynch's  great  argument  in  proof  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha  shown  to  be  am- 
biguous.— The  testimony  of  the  Papacy,  on  moral  grounds,  entitled  to  no  consideration. 

I  COME  now,  sir,  to  the  examination  of  your  argument  for  the 
inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha,  as  well  as  of  all  the   other  books 

*  Basnage  Histoire  des  Juifs,  torn.  ii.  pt.  i.  p.  325. — Brucker  Crit.  Hist. 
Phil.  torn.  ii.  p.  721.  See  particularly  Eichhom  who  has  clearly  shown  that 
the  charge  is  unfounded.     Einleit.  4th  Edit.  vol.  i.  p.  136. 


AFOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  27 

which  you  profess  to  receive  as  sacred  and  canonical.  It  is 
really  a  curious  specimen  of  dialectic  skill.  I  know  of  nothing 
fit  to  be  compared  with  it  in  point  of  originality  and  power,  but 
the  famous  oration  of  the  Bishop  of  Bitonto,  on  opening  the  ven- 
erable Council  of  Trent,  in  which  he  predicted  the  most  glori- 
ous results  from  a  series  of  puns  on  the  names  and  surnames  of 
the  presiding  Cardinals,*  or  that  still  more  remarkable  specimen 
of  ingenuity  and  acuteness  by  which  your  angelic  doctor  and 
eagle  of  divines  so  triumphantly  proves  that  it  is  the  duty  of  in- 
feriors to  submit  to  their  superiors  in  the  Church  from  the  very 
pertinent  and  conclusive  passage,  "  the  oxen  were  ploughing  and 
the  asses  feeding  beside  them."  No  doubt  your  ambition  is 
excited  to  rival  these  departed  worthies  of  your  sect ;  to  achieve 
for  yourself  a  name  which  posterity  shall  not  willingly  let  die;  to 
become,  in  process  of  time,  and  your  efforts  give  every  promise 
of  being  crowned  with  success, 

"  A  second  Thomas,  or  at  once. 
To  name  them  all,  another  Dunce." 

In  appreciating  the  force  and  importance  of  your  argument, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  bear  distinctly  in  mind  that  the  conclusion 
which  you  aim  to  establish  is  not  to  be  probably  true,  but  infal- 
libly certain.  You  require  of  those  who  undertake  to  determine 
for  themselves  what  books  have  been  given  by  inspiration  of  God, 
to  decide  this  matter  with  absolute  certainty,  or  to  renounce  the 
exercise  of  their  private  judgments.     In  proposing,  therefore,  a 

*  "  We  enter  upon  and  commence  this  General  Council  lawfully  assembled, 
with  the  assistance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  by  the  sanction  of  the  Apostolic  See,  and 
under  the  direction  of  these  prelates,  who  stand  conspicuous  in  this  holy  com- 
pany— a  new  Jerusalem,  viz.  .Tohanne  Maria  de  Monte,  whose  looks  and  af- 
fections are  continually  directed  upward  to  the  mountain  (montem)  which  is 
Christ,  whence  comes  our  strength.  Marcello  Politino,  who  formerly  directed 
the  efforts  of  his  profound  and  impartial  mind  to  the  support  of  the  Christian 
Commonwealth  (politiae),  whose  corrupt  morals  have  afforded  our  enemies  an 
opportunity  to  attack  us.  Reginald  Pole,  more  resembling  an  angel  than  an 
Englishman  (non  tarn  Anglo, quam  angelo)." 

This  extraordinary  speech  of  the  Bishop  of  Bitonto,  in  the  midst  of  all  its 
extravagance  and  blasphemy,  contains  one  truth — a  very  just  comparison  of 
the  Council  of  Trent  to  the  Trojan  horse.  What  could  more  forcibly  illustrate 
the  fraud,  hypocrisy  and  mischievous  designs  of  the  Holy  Fathers  ? 


28  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

"  more  excellent  way,"  you  could  not  think  of  substituting  one 
which  did  not  fulfil  this  high  and  important  condition.  Your 
conclusion,  then,  is  not  to  be  a  matter  of  opinion  but  infallible 
truth,  and  if  your  arguments  do  not  establish  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  a  reasonable  doubt  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha, 
they  fall  short  of  the  purpose  which  you  have  brought  them  for- 
ward to  sustain.  Your  proposition  consequently  is  that  there  is 
infallible  evidence  that  the  Apocrypha  were  given  by  inspiration 
of  God — or  to  state  it  in  another  form,  that  the  Apocrypha  were 
inspired,  is  infallibly  and  absolutely  certain.  Your  general  argu- 
ment may  be  compendiously  expressed  in  the  following  syllo- 
gism : 

Whatever  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  declare  to  be 
true  must  be  infallibly  certain  : 

That  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired  the  pastors  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  declare  to  be  true  : 

Therefore  it  must  be  infallibly  certain. 

In  other  words,  the  Council  of  Trent  did  not  err  in  this  par- 
ticular case,  because  it  could  not  err  in  any  case.  It  is  the  argu- 
mentum  a  non  posse  ad  non  esse,  which  is  then  only  logically 
sound  when  the  wow  posse  is  sufficiently  established.  Since  the 
whole  weight  of  your  reasoning  rests  upon  the  truth  of  your  ma- 
jor proposition,  you  have  very  judiciously  employed  all  your  re- 
sources in  fortifying  it.  Still,  sir,  after  all  your  care,  it  is  sig- 
nally exposed  to  heretical  assaults.  In  the  first  place,  you  must 
be  aware  that  your  argument  is  vitiated  by  that  species  of  paral- 
ogism which  logicians  denominate  ambiguity  of  the  middle. 
What  is  the  precise  extension  of  the  words  "  pastors  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  ?"  They  may  be  understood  either  universally, 
particularly,  or  distributively  ;  and  you  will  excuse  me  for  saying, 
that  in  the  course  of  your  first  letter  you  have  either  employed 
them  in  each  of  these  different  applications  or  I  have  been  wholly 
unable  to  apprehend  your  meaning.  At  one  time  it  would  seem 
that  you  mean  the  whole  body  of  your  priesthood  collected  to- 
gether in  a  grand  assembly.  You  speak  of  a  bodjj  of  individuals, 
to  whom,  in  thci?'  collective  capacity,  God  has  given  authority  to 
make  an  unerring  decision."  Then,  again,  you  inform  us  that 
the  '*  pastors  of  the  Catholic  Church"  (meaning,  of  course,  the 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  29 

Church  of  Rome)  "  claim  to  compose  it."  In  addition  to  this 
you  speak  of  a  single  priest  "presenting  himself  to  instruct  a 
Christian  or  an  infidel"  as  a  member  of  the  body — whence  the 
inference  is  natural  and  necessary,  that  every  priest  is  a  member 
of  the  body.  From  a  comparison  of  these  various  passages  in  your 
first  letter,  it  would  evidently  appear  that  you  employed  the 
words  "  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  "  in  your  major  pro- 
position in  their  fullest  extension.  If,  then,  you  meant  an  assembly 
composed  of  all  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  the  Council 
of  Trent,  which  comprised  only  a  small  portion  of  your  teachers, 
has  not  manifestly  the  shadow  of  a  claim  to  the  precious  virtue 
of  infallibility.  In  this  case  your  major  might  be  true,  and  yel 
your  minor  would  be  so  evidently  false  as  to  destroy  completely 
the  validity  of  your  conclusion.  A  body  consisting  of  all  the 
pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  never  has  met,  never  will  meet, 
and,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  never  can  meet;  and  an  infalli- 
bility lodged  in  such  an  assembly  for  the  guidance  of  human 
faith  or  the  regulation  of  human  practice,  is  just  as  intangible 
and  worthless  as  if  it  were  lodored  with  the  man  in  the  moon. 
Still,  whether  this  infallible  tribunal  were  accessible  or  not,  your 
argument  would  be  a  contemptible  sophism.  It  would  stand  pre- 
cisely thus  : — Whatsoever  all  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
in  their  collective  capacity  declare,  must  be  infallibly  certain. 
That  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired,  some  of  the  pastors  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  collected  at  Trent  declared. 

Therefore  it  must  be  infallibly  certain.  An  infallible  con- 
clusion, undoubtedly ! 

But,  sir,  the  words  may  be  taken  particularly.  If,  however, 
they  are  to  be  taken  in  a  restricted  sense,  you  should  have  told 
us  precisely  what  limitation  you  intended  to  prefix  ;  otherwise 
your  reasoning  may  be  still  vitiated  by  an  ambiguous  middle. 
Without  such  an  explanation,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining 
whether  the  words  as  employed  in  the  minor  coincide,  as  they 
should  do,  with  the  same  words  as  employed  in  the  major.  You 
should  have  told  us  under  what  circumstances  infallibility  at- 
taches to  some  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  if  you  indeed 
intended  to  limit  the  phrase.  That  you  have  occasionally  used 
it  in  a  limited  sense,  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  you  attribute 


30:  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

infallibility  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  was  certainly  a  small 
body  compared  with  all  the  pastors  of  your  entire  Church.     Are 
you  prepared  to  say  that  any  number  of  Popish  pastors,  met  un- 
der  any  circumstances,  shall  be  infallibly   guided   by  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  all  their  decisions,  concerning  doctrine  and  practice  1 
— that  even  the  same  number  which  met  at  Trent,  collected  to- 
gether by  accident,  or  merely  by  mutual  consent,  would  be  pos- 
sessed of  the  same  exemption  from  all  possibility  of  error  which 
you   ascribe  to  Trent?     If  you  are  not  prepared  to  make  this 
assertion,  your  major  proposition  is  not  absolutely  true,  but  only 
under  special  limitations.     These  limitations  are  not  even  stated, 
much  less  dejined,  and  while  your  leading  proposition  is  left  in 
this  unsettled  condition,  what  logician  can  determine   whether 
your  argument  be  any  thing  more  than  a  specious  fallacy  1    Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  it  can  never  be  regarded  as  conclusive,  until  you 
show  that   all   those  conditions  were  fulfilled   in  the  Council  of 
Trent,  which  are  necessary  to  secure  infallibility  to  "  some  of 
the  pastors"   of  the  Church  of  Rome.     Where,  sir,  in  all  your 
letters  have  you  touched  this  point  ?      What  ivas  there  that  dis- 
tinguished  the    Fathers    of    Trent    from   an   equal   number   of 
Bishops  and  Divines  met  together  upon  their  own  responsibility 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  former  infallible,  and  the  latter 
not?    Was  it  the  authority  of  the  Pope?    Then,  sir,  your  argu- 
ment was  not  complete  until  you  had  proved,  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty, that  a  Papal  Bull  secures  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost! 
Was  it  the  concurrence  of  the  Emperor?     This  matter  is  no- 
where established.     Was  it  both   combined?     What  was  it,  sir? 
Reasoning4;o  you,  sir,  is  evidently  a  neiv  vocation.     You  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  trusting  so  implicitly  to  the  authority  of  others  in 
the  formation  of  your  creed,  that  your  first  efforts  at  ratiocina- 
tion are  as  awkward  and  ridiculous,  as  the  rude  motions  of  an 
infant  just  learning  to  walk,  or  of  a  bird  just  learning  to  fly.     Let 
me  remind  you,  sir,  that  as  you  aim  at  an  infallible  conclusion, 
every  step  of  your   argument   must  be  supported  by  infallible 
proof     There  must  be  no  hidden  ambiguities — no  rash  assump- 
tions— no  precipitate  deductions.     In  so  solemn  a  business,  you 
should  construct  a  solid  fabric,  able  to  support  the  enormous 
weight  which  you  would  have  us  to  rest  upon  it. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  Si* 

There  is  still  another  meaning,  which  your  major  proposition 
may  bear.  You  may  have  employed  the  words  "pastors  of  the 
Church  of  Rome"  in  a  distributive  sense,  and  then  you  would 
distinctly  inform  us  that  every  priest  belonging  to  your  sect, 
shall  infallibly  teach  the  truth.  The  application  of  your  aro-u- 
ment  to  the  condition  of  the  ignorant  and  unlearned,  absolutely 
requires  this  sense.  According  to  you,  every  man,  no  matter 
what  may  be  his  condition  or  attainments,  may  have  infallible 
evidence  on  the  subject  of  the  canon.  Where  is  he  to  find  it?  In 
the  instructions  of  the  priest,  who  informs  him  what  books  were 
inspired,  and  what  books  arose  from  "  private  interpretation  ?" 
The  testimony  of  the  single,  individual  priest,  is  all  the  evidence 
that  he  does  or  can  have.  If,  then,  he  has  infallible  evidence, 
the  testimony  of  the  priest,  which  is  his  only  evidence,  must  be 
infallible,  and  consequently  the  priest  himself  must  be  infalli- 
ble too,  or  incapableof  teaching  error.  It  is  not  enouorh  that  the 
water  should  be  pure  at  the  fountain,  it  must  also  be  pure  in  the 
channels  through  which  it  is  conveyed.  The  Council  of  Trent 
may  have  been  infallible,  but  if  it  has  only  fallible  expounders 
the  people  can  have  nothing  hut  fallible  evidence.  According  to 
you,  however,  the  people  do  have  infallible  evidence — therefore, 
the  Council  must  have  infallible  expounders — therefore  every 
pastor  must  be  individually,  infallible.*     While  your  aro-ument 

*■  "  Though  there  have  been  infinite  disputes  as  to  where  the  infallibility 
resides  ;  what  are  the  doctrines  it  has  definitively  pronounced  true,  and  who,  to 
the  individual,  is  the  infallible  expounder  of  what  is  thus  infallibly  pronounced 
infallible  ;  yet  he  who  receives  this  doctrine  in  its  integrity,  has  nothing  more 
to  do  than  to  eject  his  reason,  sublime  his  faith  into  credulity,  and  reduce  his 
creed  to  these  two  comprehensive  articles  :  '  I  believe  whatsoever  the  Church 
believes  ;'  '  I  believe  that  the  Church  believes  whatsoever  my  father-confessor 
believes  that  she  believes.'  For  thus  he  reasons  :  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
whatsoever  God  says  is  infallibly  true  ;  it  is  infollibly  true  that  the  Church  says 
just  what  God  says  ;  it  is  infallibly  true  that  what  the  Church  says  is  known  ; 
and  it  is  also  infallibly  true  that  my  father-confessor,  or  the  parson  of  the  next 
parish,  is  an  infallible  expositor  of  what  is  thus  infallibly  known  to  be  the 
Church's  infallible  belief,  of  what  God  has  declared  to  be  infallibly  true.  If  any 
one  of  the  links,  even  the  last,  in  this  strange  sorites,  be  supposed  unsound,  if 
it  be  not  true  that  the  priest  is  an  infallible  expounder  to  the  individual  of  the 
Church's  infallibility.if  his  judgment  be  only  '  private  judgment,'  we  come  back 


32  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

however,  indispensably  requires  this  sense,  you  seem  to  disclaim 
it  in  those  passages  of  your  letters,  which  speak  of  a  body  of  in- 
dividuals in  their  collective  capacity,  as  the  chosen  depositories 
of  the  truth  of  God.  How,  I  beseech  you,  is  a  poor  Protestant 
heretic,  with  no  other  helps  but  his  grammar  and  lexicon,  and 
no  other  guide  but  his  own  reason,  to  detect  your  real  meaning 
in  this  mass  of  ambiguity  and  confusion  ?  I  would  not  misrep- 
resent you,  and  yet  I  confess  that  I  do  not  understand  you.  I 
can  put  no  intelligible  sense  upon  your  words,  which  shall  make 
all  the  parts  of  your  letter  consistent  with  themselves.  You 
seem  to  have  shifted  your  position,  as  often  as  you  added  to  your 
paragraphs.  We  have  no  less  than  four  distinct  propositions 
covertly  concealed  under  the  deceitful  terms  of  your  major 
premiss : 

1 .  Whatsoever  all  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  declare, 
must  be  infallibly  true. 

2.  Whatsoever  some  of  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
under  certain  special  limitations,  declare,  must  be  infallibly  true. 

3.  Whatsoever  some  of  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
under  any  circumstances  declare,  must  be  infallibly  true. 

4.  Whatsoever  any  priest  or  pastor  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
declares,  must  be  infallibly  true. 

Until,  sir,  you  shall  condescend  to  throw  more  light  upon 
the  intricacies  of  your  style,  your  leading  proposition  must  stand 
like  an  unknown  quantity  in  Algebra  ;  and  for  aught  that  appears 
to  the  contrary  the  letter  X  might  have  been  just  as  safely  and 
just  as  definitely  substituted.  Those  who  look  for  an  infallible 
conclusion  in  this  exquisite  specimen  of  reasoning,  must  not  be 
surprised  if  they  meet  with  the  same  success  which  rewards  the 
easy  credulity  of  a  child  in  seeking  for  golden  treasures  at  the 
foot  of  the  rainbow.  Thousands  have  fully  believed  that  they 
were  there,  but  none  have  been  able  to  reach  the  spot. 

The  infallibility  of  testimony  which  you  attribute  to  the 
pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  you  endeavor  to  collect  from  two 
general  propositions,  which  it  is  necessary  to  your  argument  to 

at  once  to  the  perplexities  of  the  common  theory  of  private  judgment." — Edin- 
burgh  Review,  l>io.  139,  Amer.  reprint,  p.  206. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  ^ 

link  together  as  antecedent  and  consequent.  First  you  inform 
us  that  God  must  have  "  given  authority  to  a  body  of  individu- 
als in  their  collective  capacity  to  make  an  unerring  decision 
upon  the  subject"  of  the  canon;  and  then  you  infer  that,  if 
such  a  body  exists  at  all,  it  must  be  composed  of  the  pastors 
and  teachers  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  Until  you  can  show 
that  the  antecedent  in  the  proposition  is  necessarily  true,  and 
the  consequent  just  as  necessarily  connected  with  it^  you  must 
acknowledge,  sir,  that  you  have  failed  in  presenting  to  your 
readers  what  your  extravagant  pretensions  require,  an  infalli- 
ble conclusion.  You  must  sliotc,  according  to  the  process  of 
argument  which  you  have  prescribed  for  yourself,  not  only  that 
an  infallible  body  exists,  but  that  it  is  and  can  he  composed  of 
no  other  elements  but  those  that  you  embrace  under  the  dark 
and  unknown  phrase,  **  Pastors  of  the  Catholic  Church." 
Deficiency  of  proof  on  either  of  these  points  is  fatal  to  your 
caUvse. 

It  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  in  the  history  of  human  paradox, 
contradiction  and  absurdity,  that  absolute  infallihility  should  be 
claimed  for  the  testimony  of  those,  who,  if  tried  by  the  ordinary 
laws  which  regulate  human  belief,  would  be  found  destitute  of 
any  decent  pretensions  to  the  common  degree  of  credibility. 
You  have  presented  the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  before 
us  distinctly  in  the  'Ai\.\iu(\G  o^  loitncsscs.  Their  power  in  regard 
to  articles  of  faith  is  simply  declarative;  they  can  only  trans- 
mit to  others,  pure  and  uncorrupted,  that  which  they  received  at 
the  hands  of  the  Apostles.  They  can  add  nothing  to  it;  they 
can  take  nothing  from  it ;  and  whatever  they  may  declare  to  be 
the  truth  of  God  according  to  the  original  preaching  of  the  Apos- 
tles, we  are  bound  to  receive  upon  their  testimony.  Whatso- 
ever they  declare  or  testify  to  be  true,  according  to  your  state- 
ment, must  be  infallibly  certain.  Now  the  credibility  of  a  wit- 
ness depends  as  much  upon  his  moral  integrity  as  upon  his  means 
and  opportunities  of  knowledge.  He  must  not  only  knoio  the 
truth,  but  be  disposed  to  speak  it.  As,  too,  our  assent  to  testimony 
is  ultimately  founded  upon  our  instinctive  belief  that  every  ef- 
fect must  have  its  adequate  cause,  when  existing  causes  can  be 
assigned  which  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  deposition  of  a 

3 


34  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

witness,  apart  from  the  truth  of  his  declarations,  we  are  slow  to 
rely  on  his  veracity.  In  other  words,  when  he  is  known  to  be 
under  strong  temptations  to  pervert,  conceal,  or  misstate  facts, 
we  proportionably  subtract  from  the  weight  of  his  evidence ;  and 
if  it  should  so  happen  that  he  had  ever  been  previously  detected 
in  a  lie,  few  would  be  inclined  to  receive  his  testimony.  If 
these  remarks  be  just,  whoever  would  undertake  to  establish  the 
credibility  of  your  pastors,  must  prove  that  they  are  possessed  of 
such  a  degree  of  moral  honesty  as  to  constitute  a  complete  ex- 
emption from  all  adequate  temptations  to  bear  false  witness. 
To  prove  their  knowledge  of  the  subject  is  not  enough — their 
integrity  must  also  be  fully  made  out.  Any  abstract  argu- 
ments, however  refined  and  ingenious,  would  be  liable  to  a  pal- 
pable reductio  ad  absurdum,  if  after  all  their  extravagant  preten- 
sions, it  should  be  ascertained  from  undeniable  facts  that  your 
priesthood  has  ever  been  found  destitute  of  those  sterling  moral 
qualities  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  our  confidence  in  tes- 
timony. Has  it  ever  been  shown,  sir,  that  the  Bishops  of  your 
Church  have  never  been  exposed,  from  their  lordly  ambition  and  in- 
domitable lust,  to  adequate  motives  for  bearing  record  to  a  lie? 
Has  it  ever  been  proved  that  the  purity  of  their  manners  and  the 
sanctity  of  their  lives  have  always  been  such  as  to  render  them  the 
most  unexceptionable  witnesses  in  the  holy  subject  of  religion? 
How  will  you  dispose  of  the  remarkable  testimony  of  Pope  Ad- 
rian VI.,  who  confessed  through  his  Nuncio  to  the  Diet  of  Nurem- 
berg, that  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  Church  was  "  caused 
by  the  sins  of  men,  especially  of  the  Priests  ?ly\A  PrelatesV^ 
What  say  you,  sir,  to  that  admirable  commentary  on  the  honesty 
and  integrity  of  your  pastors,  the  "Centum  Gravamina"  of  the 
same  memorable  Diet,  which  was  carefully  and  deliberately 
drawn  up  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  facts,  and  despatched 
with  all  possible  rapidity  to  Rome?  Do  the  records  of  the  past 
furnish  no  authenticated  instances  in  which  your  infallible  pas- 
tors have  either  testified  to  falsehood  themselves  or  applauded 
it  in  others?  Sir,  if  all  history  be  not  a  fable,  the  priesthood  of 
Rome,  taken  as  a  body,  can  yield  in  corruption,  ambition,  tyranny 
and  licentiousness,  to  no  class  of  men  that  ever  cursed  the  earth. 
If  infallible  honesty  can  be  proved  of  them ;  if  the  Holy  Spirit 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  35 

has,  indeed,  been  a  perpetual  resident  in  this  cage  of  unclean 
birds;  if  the  ordinary  credibility  which  attaches  to  a  common 
witness  can  be  ascribed  to  them,  where  their  pride,  ambition,  or 
interest  is  involved,  then  all  moral  reasoning  falls  to  the  ground, 
the  measures  of  truth  are  deceitful,  and  we  may  quietly  renounce 
the  exercise  of  judgment,  and  yield  to  the  caprices  of  fancy. 
No,  sir,  instead  of  being  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  the  habitation 
of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  your  dilapidated  Church  is  a  dreary 
spectacle  of  moral  desolation,  peopled  only  by  wild  beasts  of  the 
desert,  full  of  doleful  creatures,  owls,  satyrs  and  dragons.* 

Tried,  sir,  in^the  scale  in  which  other  witnesses  are  tried, 
you  will  be  found  deplorably  wanting.  Your  temptations  to  du- 
plirAty  are  too  strong,  and  your  weight  of  inoral  character  too 
small,  to  command  the  least  respect  for  your  testimony.  Hence, 
you  very  wisely  evade  all  moral  considerations,  and  resolve  your 
boasted  infallibility,  not  into  your  own  attachment  to  the  truth, 
but  into  a  stern  necessity,  to  which  God  subjects  you  by  his 
guardian  Providence  and  the  irresistible  operations  of  his  Spirit,  of 
uttering  whatever  he  shall  put  into  your  mouth,  as  Baalam's  Ass, 
through  his  power,  overcame  the  impediments  of  nature  and  spoke 
in  the  language  of  men.  Whether  you  have  succeeded  in  de- 
monstrating by  infallible  evidence,  that  you  are  the  subjects — the 
passive  and  mechanical  subjects — of  such  an  uncontrollable  af- 

*  "  Without  entering  into  the  mazes  of  a  frivolous  and  unintelligible  dispute 
about  words,  it  is  sufficient  to  remark,  that  the  supernatural  and  infallible 
guidance  of  a  Church,  which  leaves  it  to  stumble  on  the  threshold  of  morality, 
to  confound  the  essential  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  to  recommend  the  vio- 
lation of  the  most  solemn  compacts,  and  the  nmrder  of  men,  against  whom 
not  a  shadow  of  criminality  is  alleged,  except  a  dissent  from  its  dogmas,  is 
nothing  worth  ;  but  must  ever  ensure  the  ridicule  and  abhorrence  of  those,  who 
judge  the  tree  by  its  fruits,  and  who  will  not  be  easily  persuaded  that  the  eter- 
nal fountain  of  love  and  purity  inhabits  the  breast,  which  '  breathes  out  cruelty 
and  slaughter.'  If  persecution  for  conscience' sake,  is  contrary  to  the  princi- 
ples of  justice  and  the  genius  of  Christianity  ;  then,  I  say,  this  holy  and  infalli- 
ble Church  was  so  abandoned  of  God,  as  to  be  permitted  to  legitimate  the  foul- 
est crimes — to  substitute  murders  for  sacrifice,  and  to  betray  a  total  ignorance 
of  the  precepts  and  spirit  of  the  religion  which  she  professed  to  support ;  and 
whether  the  Holy  Ghost  condescended,  at  the  same  moment,  to  illuminate  one 
hemisphere  of  minds  so  hardened,  and  hearts  so  darkened,  maybe  safely  left 
to  the  judgment  of  common  sense." — Hall's  M^orks,  vol.  iv.  p.  249. 


36  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

flatus  from  above,  as  may  entitle  you  to  a  credit  which  your  hon- 
esty and  integrity  would  never  warraant,  remains  now  to  be  in- 
quired. 


LETTER    III- 


Examination  of  the  argument  from  the  necessity  of  the  case  in  favor  of  some  infallible  tribunal, 
shown  to  be  presumptuous  and  weak. 

In  resuming  now  the  analysis  of  your  argument,  it  may  be 
well  to  repeat  that  the  ultimate  conclusion  which  you  propose  to 
reach  is,  the  infallibility  of  Rome  as  a  witness  for  the  truth. 
This  point  you  endeavor  to  establish  by  showing,  in  the  first 
place,  that  there  must  be  some  "  body  of  individuals  to  whom,  in 
their  collective  capacity,"  God  has  graciously  vouchsafed  the 
precious  prerogative  which  you  claim  for  your  pastors.  Accord- 
ing to  you  the  whole  question  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  turns 
upon  the  existence  of  an  infallible  tribunal  on  earth,  from  which 
men  may  receive  unerring  decisions  in  matters  of  faith,  and  with- 
out which  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  race  must  be  aban- 
doned to  hopeless  and  complete  infidelity.*  If  there  were,  in- 
deed, no  escape  from  the  dilemma  to  which  you  have  attempted 
to  reduce  us,  the  means  of  salvation  would  be  hardly  less  fatal 
than  the  dangers  from  which  they  are  appointed  to  rescue  us. 
But  it  may  yet  be  found,  sir,  that  a  merciful  God  has  dealt  more 
gently  with  his  children  than  to  commit  their  fate  to  the  teach- 
ings of  a  body   "  whose  garments   are  dyed   in  blood,"  whose 

• 

*  "  Does  there  exist  a  body  of  men  clothed  with  this  authority,  guaranteed 
by  such  a  divine  promise  from  error  ]  Has  it  made  a  declaration  setting  forth, 
in  pursuance  of  that  authority,  what  works  are  truly  inspired  ?  You,  reverend 
sir,  are  forced  to  the  alternative  of  either  answering  both  questions  in  the 
affinnative,  or  of  saying  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  Christians  are  sol- 
emnly bound  to  reject  the  Scriptures  ;  and  if  they  have  admitted  them,  it  was 
in  violation  of  the  will  of  God,  and  of  their  solemn  duty.  From  this  dilemma, 
there  is  no  escape." — Letter  I. 

"  Unaided  reason  almost  assures  me,  this  is  the  course  the  Saviour  would 
adopt." — Letter  I. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  37 

whole  career  on  earth,  like  the  progress  of  Joel's  locusts,  has 
been  marked  by  ruin,  and  which,  if  its  future  blessings  are  to  be 
collected  from  its  past  achievements,  can  give  us  nothing  but 
w^ormwood  and  gall,  a  stone  for  bread  and  a  serpent  for  a  fish. 
The  friends  of  liberty  and  man,  if  reduced  to  the  deplorable  al- 
ternative of  reaching  the  sacred  Scriptures  only  on  condition  of 
submitting  to  a  bondage  more  grievous  than  that  from  which  the 
groaning  Israelites  were  delivered  by  a  strong  hand  and  an  out- 
stretched arm,  would,  in  all  probability,  prefer  the  frozen  air  of 
infidelity,  to  the  deadly  miasma  of  Rome.  But,  sir,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  no  such  dilemma,  so  fatal  in  either  horn,  exists  in 
reality ;  and  that  there  is  a  plan  by  which  we  may  be  rescued  at 
once  from  the  gloomy  horrors  of  skepticism,  and  the  despotic 
cruelty  of  Rome.  To  you,  sir,  it  is  utterly  inconceivable  that 
the  infinite  God,  whose  judgments  are  unsearchable  and  his 
ways  past  finding  out,  should  have  been  able  to  devise,  in  the  ex- 
haustless  resources  of  his  wisdom,  any  plan  of  authenticating 
the  record  of  his  own  will,  but  that  which  you  have  prescribed. 
You  undertake  to  prove  that  there  must  be  a  body  of  individuals 
authorized  to  make  an  unerring  decision  upon  the  doctrines  of 
religion  as  well  as  the  truth  and  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures, 
from  the  absolute  impossibility  that  any  other  scheme  could  be 
efficient  or  successful.*  What  is  this  but  to  limit  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel  ?  You  would  do  well  to  remember  that  the  pur- 
poses of  God  are  not  adjusted  by  the  measures  of  human  prudence 
or  of  human  sagacity.  As  the  heavens  are  high  above  the  earth, 
so  His  thoughts  are  high  above  our  thoughts,  and  his  ways 
above  our  ways.  In  his  hands  broken  pitchers  and  empty  lamps 
are  capable  of  achieving  as  signal  execution,  as  armed  legions  or 
chariots  of  fire.  To  judge,  therefore,  of  the  schemes  of  the 
Eternal,  by  our  own  conceptions  of  expediency  or  fitness — to 

*  "  The  fourth  method  alone  is,  therefore,  both  practicable  in  the  ordinary 
condition  of  the  Christian  world,  and  efficient.  *****  After  thus  establishing 
the  absolute  necessity  of  admitting  that  authority  which  you  impugn,  and 
showing  the  frightful  consequences  of  a  contrary  course — consequences  from 
which,  I  am  certain,  you  will  shrink — I  might  rest  satisfied  that"  I  have  fully 
answered  your  essay,  and  proved,  by  clear  and  cogent  arguments,  the  inspira- 
tion of  those  works  against  which  it  is  directed." — Letter  I. 


38  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

bring  the  plans  of  Him  who  is  wonderful  in  counsel,  and  whose 
government  is  vast  beyond  the  possibility  of  mortal  conception, 
to  the  fluctuating  standard  of  the  wisdom  of  this  world,  is  to  be 
guilty  of  presumption,  equalled  by  nothing  but  the  transcendent 
folly  of  the  effort.  A  sound  philosophy  as  well  as  a  proper  rever- 
ence for  God  would  surely  dictate  that  His  appointments  must 
always  be  efficacious  and  successful,  simply  because  they  are 
His  appointments.  We  are  not  at  liberty  upon  matters  of  this 
sort  to  indulge  in  vain  speculations  a  priori,  and  pronounce  of 
any  measures,  that  they  cannot  be  adopted,  because  they  seem 
ill-suited  to  their  ends.  It  is  true  wisdom  to  believe  that  He 
who  originally  established  the  connection  of  means  and  ends,  can 
accomplish  His  purposes  by  the  feeblest  agents,  the  most  un- 
promising arrangements,  or  by  no  subsidiary  instruments  at  all. 
Plausible  objections  avail  nothing  against  divine  institutions. 
Whatever  does  not  contradict  the  essential  perfections  of  the 
Deity,  nor  involve  a  departure  from  that  eternal  law  of  right 
which  finds  its  standard  in  the  nature  of  God,  is  embraced  in 
that  boundless  range  of  possibilities  which  infinite  power  can  ac- 
complish by  a  single  act  of  the  will.  Any  argument,  therefore, 
which  bases  its  conclusion  upon  the  gratuitous  assumption  that 
the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  conceptions  of  man  shall  be  found  to 
harmonize,  is  built  upon  the  sand.  To  you,  sir,  the  theory  of 
private  judgment  may  be  encumbered  with  difficulties  so  insur- 
mountably great  as  to  transcend  your  ideas  of  the  power  of 
God  :  you  can  perceive  no  wisdom  in  a  plan  on  which  priests 
are  not  tyrants,  and  the  people  are  not  slaves.  But  your  objec- 
tions are  hardly  less  formidable  than  those  of  Jews  and  Greeks 
to  the  early  preaching  of  the  cross.  Still,  sir,  Christ  crucified 
was  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God.  In  your  attempt 
to  fathom  the  counsels  of  Jehovah  by  arbitrary  speculation,  and 
to  settle  with  certainty  the  appointments  of  his  grace,  may  we 
not  detect  the  degrading  effects  of  a  superstition  which  tolerates 
those  who  acknowledge  a  God  in  a  feeble  mortal,  and  finds  objects 
of  worship  in  departed  men?  Certain  it  is  that  your  reasoning 
involves  the  tremendous  conclusion  that  the  great,  the  everlast- 
ing Jehovah,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth,  is  altogether 
such  an  one  as  we  ourselves.     Do  you  not  tell  us,  in  effect,  that 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED,  39 

God  could  not  have  given  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  truth  and 
inspiration  of  his  own  word,  without  establishing  a  visible  tri- 
bunal protected  from  error  by  his  special  grace?  And  that  he  is 
thus  limited  in  his  resources,  thus  necessarily  tied  up  to  the  one 
only  plan  which  the  pastors  of  Rome  have  found  so  prodigiously 
profitable  to  them,  according  to  your  reasoning,  must  be  re- 
ceived as  an  infallible  truth, ']n?>i  as  absolutely  certain  as  an  axiom 
in  geometry.  The  argument  by  which  you  reach  this  stupen- 
dous conclusion,  has  been  wonderfully  labored  ;  but  when  weighed 
in  the  balances  of  logical  propriety,  it  is  found  as  wonderfully 
wanting ;  and  it  becomes  a  matter  of  astonishment  how  any  hu- 
man being  who  "  bore  a  brain  "  could  ever  have  been  so  egre- 
giously  duped  as  to  have  mistaken  such  a  tirade  of  folly  for  le- 
gitimate reasoning.  I  shall  now  proceed,  in  all  candor  and 
fidelity,  to  expose  the  "  nakedness  of  the  land." 

With  a  self-sufficiency  of  understanding  which  never  betray- 
ed itself  in  such  illustrious  men  as  Bacon,  Newton,  Locke,  or 
Boyle,  you  undertake  to  enumerate  all  the  possible  expedients 
by  which  God  could  ascertain  his  creatures  of  the  inspiration  of 
his  word.  These  you  reduce  to  four,*  and  as  the  first  three, 
according  to  you,  are  neither  "  practical  nor  efficient,"  the  fourth 


*  "  Now,  reverend  sir,  there  may  be  many  ways  of  seeking  to  ascertain  the 
fact  of  the  inspiration  of  any  writer  or  writers.  They  may,  however,  be  all  re- 
duced to  the  four  following  methods : 

"  1.  Is  every  man,  no  matter  what  be  his  condition,  to  investigate  by  his  own 
labor  and  research,  and  duly  examine  the  arguments  that  have  been  or  can  be 
alleged  for  and  against  the  several  books,  which,  it  is  asserted,  are  inspired  ; 
and,  on  the  strength  of  that  examination,  to  decide  for  himself  with  abso- 
lute certainty,  what  books  are  and  what  are  not  inspired  ? 

"  2.  Is  every  individual  to  receive  books  as  inspired,  or  to  reject  them  as  un- 
inspired, according  to  the  decisions  of  persons  he  esteems  duly  qualified  by 
erudition  and  sound  judgment,  to  determine  that  question  accurately  ? 

"  3.  Must  he  learn  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  from  some  individual, 
whom  God  commissioned  to  announce  this  fact  to  the  world  ? 

"  4.  Must  he  learn  it  from  a  body  of  individuals,  to  whom,  in  their  collec- 
tive capacity,  God  has  given  authority  to  make  an  unerring  decision  on  the  sub- 
ject ?***** 

"  To  some  one  of  these  four  methods  every  \i\nn  of  proving  the  inspiration  o^ 
the  Scriptures  can  be  reduced." — Letter  T. 


40  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

remains  as  a  necessary  truth.  In  the  species  of  argument  *  which 
you  have  thought  proper  to  adopt,  the  validity  of  the  reasoning 
depends  on  two  circumstances :  1st.  All  the  possible  supposi- 
tions which  can  be  conceived  to  be  true  must  be  actually  made ; 
and  2d,  Every  one  must  be  legitimately  shown  to  be  false,  but  the 
one  which  is  embraced  in  the  conclusion.  If  all  the  others  have 
been  refuted,  that  must  be  true,  provided,  from  the  nature  of  the 
subject,  some  one  must  necessarily  be  admitted.  In  the  present 
case  it  is  freely  conceded  that  there  is  some  way  of  settling  the  can- 
on of  Scripture,  and  hence  your  argument  proceeds  upon  a  legiti- 
mate assumption. t 

1.  Now,  sir,  the  first  question  which  arises  upon  a  critical 
review  of  your  argument  is :  Do  your  four  schemes  completely 
exhaust  the  subject  ?  Are  these  the  only  conceivable  plans  by 
which  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  could  be  satisfactorily  es- 
tablished ?  If  not — if  there  indeed  be  other  methods  which  you 
have  not  noticed — other  schemes  which  you  have  suppressed  or 
overlooked — some  one  of  these  may  be  the  truth,  and  your  infalli- 
ble conclusion  consequently  false.  In  Paley's  celebrated  argu- 
ment for  the  benevolence  of  God,  if  he  had  simply  stated  that  the 
Deity  must  either  intend  our  happiness  or  misery,  and  had  omit- 
ted entirely  all  notice  of  the  third  supposition,  that  he  might  be 
indifferent  to  both — the  conclusion,  however  true  in  itself,  would 

*  The  argument  ^of  "A.  P.  P."  is  a  destructive  disjunctive  conditional. 
It  may  most  conveniently  be  expressed  in  two  consecutive  syllogisms . 

A  man  must  either  judge  for  himself  concerning  the  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, or  rely  on  the  authority  of  others.  He  cannot  judge  for  himself,  there- 
fore, he  must  rely  on  the  authority  of  others.     This  is  the  first  step. 

If  he  must  rely  on  authority,  it  must  either  be  ths  authority  of  uninspired 
individuals,  of  a  single  inspired  individual,  or  an  inspired  body  of  individuals. 
It  cannot  be  the  first  two ;  therefore,  it  it  must  be  the  last.  Now,  accord- 
ing to  the  books,  this  species  of  syllogism  must  contain  in  the  major  all  the 
suppositions  which  can  be  conceived  to  be  true,  then  the  minor  must  remove 
or  destroy  all  hut  one.  That  one,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  becomes  es- 
tablished in  the  conclusion.  The  argument  in  question,  violates  both  rules, 
and  therefore,  upon  every  view  of  the  subject,  must  be  a  fallacy. 

t  "  We  cannot  be  called  on  to  believe  any  proposition  not  sustained  by  ade- 
quate proof  When  Almighty  God  deigned  to  inspire  the  words  contained  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  he  intended  they  should  be  held  and  believed  to  be  inspired. 
Therefore,  tkere  does  exist  some  adequate  proof  of  their  inspiration." — Letter  I. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  41 

not  have  been  logically  just.  Without  pretending  that  I  am  ca- 
pable of  specifying  all  the  methods  by  which  God  might  authen- 
ticate his  own  revelation,  I  can  at  least  conceive  oi^  one,  in  ad- 
dition to  those  enumerated  by  you,  which  might  have  been  adopt- 
ed, which  may  therefore  possibly  be  true,  and  which,  until  you 
have  shown  it  to  he  false,  must  hold  your  triumphant  conclusion  in 
abeyance.  It  is  possible  that  God  himself,  by  his  Eternal  Spirit, 
may  condescend  to  be  the  teacher  of  merf,  and  enlighten  their 
understandings  to  perceive  in  the  Scriptures  themselves  infalli- 
ble marks  of  their  divine  original.  That  you  should  so  entirely 
have  overlooked  this  hypothesis — which  must  be  overthrown  be- 
fore your  argument  can  stand — is  a  little  singular,  since  it  is 
distinctly  stated  in  the  very  chapter  of  the  Westminster  Confes- 
sion to  which  you  have  alluded.* 

^  "The  heavens,"we  are  told,  "  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  For  the  invisible  things 
of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen  ;  being 
understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power 
and  Godhead."  If  the  material  workmanship  of  God  bears  such 
clear  and  decisive  traces  of  its  divine  and  eternal  Author,  as  to 
leave  the  atheist  and  idolater  without  excuse,  who  shall  say  that 
the  Word  which  he  has  exalted  above  every  other  manifestation 
of  his  name,  may  not  proclaim  with  greater  power  and  a  deeper 
emphasis,  that  it  is  indeed  the  law  of  his  mouth  ?  Who  shall 
say  that  the  composition  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures, 
may  not  be  distinguished  by  a  majesty,  grandeur,  and  supernatu- 
ral elevation,  which  are  suited  to  impress  the  reader  with  an 
irresistible  conviction,  that  these  venerable  documents  are  the 
true  and  faithful  sayings  of  God  ?  Is  there  any  absurdity  in 
asserting  with  a  distinguished  writer,  that  "  the  words  of  God, 
now  legible  in  the  Scriptures,  are  as  much  beyond  the  words  of 
men,  as  the  mighty  works  which  Christ  did,  were  above  their 
works,  and  his  prophecies  beyond  their  knowledge  V  Jehovah 
has  left  the  outward  universe  to  speak  for  itself.     Sun,  moon  and 

*  "  Our  full  persuasion  and  assurance  of  the  infallible  truth  and  divine  au- 
thority thereof,  (Holy  Scriptures,)  is  from  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
bearing  witness  by  and  with  the  word  in  our  hearts." — Westminster  Couf. 
chap.  i.  55. 

3* 


42  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

stars,  in  their  appointed  orbits,  proclaim  an  eternal  Creator,  and 
require  no  body  of  men,  "  of  individuals  in  their  collective  capaci- 
ty," to  interpret  their  voice,  or  to  teach  the  world  that  "  the  hand 
vi^hich  made  them  is  divine."  Why  may  not  the  Scriptures, 
brighter  and  more  glorious  than  the  sun,  be  left  in  the  same  way, 
as  they  run  their  appointed  course,  to  testify  to  all  that  their 
source  "  was  the  bosom  of  God,  and  their  voice  the  harmony  of 
the  world  ?"  Is  not  ttie  character  of  God  as  clearly  portrayed  in 
them,  as  in  the  mute  memorials  of  his  power  which  exist  around 
us  and  above  us  ?  Why  should  an  infallible  body  be  required 
to  make  known  the  Divine  original  of  the  Bible,  when  it  is  not 
necessary  to  establish  the  creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth? 
It  is  then  a  possible  supposition,  that  the  word  of  God  may  be 
its  own  witness;  that  the  sacred  pages  may  themselves  contain 
infallible  evidence  of  their  heavenly  origin,  which  shall  leave 
those  without  excuse,  who  reject  or  disregard  them.  They  may 
contain  the  decisive  proofs  of  their  own  inspiration,  and  by  their 
own  light,  make  good  their  pretensions  to  canonical  authority. 
'^  The  fact  that  multitudes  who  hold  the  Bible  in  their  hand,  do 
not  perceive  these  infallible  tokens  of  its  supernatural  origin,  is 
no  objection,  upon  your  own  principles,  to  the  existence  of  such 
irrefragable  evidence.  The  reality  of  the  evidence  is  one  thing 
— the  power  of  perceiving  it  is  quite  another.  It  is  no  objection 
to  the  brilliancy  of  the  sun,  that  it  fails  to  illuminate  the  blind. 
Such  is  the  deplorable  darkness  of  the  human  understanding,  in 
regard  to  the  things  that  pertain  to  God,  and  such  the  fearful 
alienation  of  men  from  the  perfection  of  his  character,  that 
though  the  light  shines  conspicuously  among  them,  they  are  yet 
unable  to  comprehend  its  rays.  Hence  to  the  production  o^ faith, 
in  order  that  the  evidence,  the  infallible  evidence  which  actually 
exists,  may  accomplish  its  appropriate  effects,  the  "  Eternal  Spirit, 
who  sends  forth  his  cherubim  and  seraphim  to  touch  the  lips  of 
whom  he  pleases,"  must  be  graciously  vouchsafed  to  illuminate  the 
darkened  mind,  and  remove  the  impediments  of  spiritual  vision. 
The  infallible  evidence  is  in  the  Scriptures  ;  the  power  of  perceiv- 
ing it  is  the  gift  of  God.  Your  own  writers,  sir,  acknowledge,  and 
you  among  the  number,  that  the  infallible  evidence  which  your 
Church  professes  to  present,  cannot  produce  faith  without  God's 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  43 

grace;  so  that  evidence  may  be  infallible  and  yet  not  e^cctual, 
through  the  folly  and  perverseness  of  men.  Bellarmin  declares 
that  *'  the  aro-uments  which  render  the  articles  of  our  faith  credi- 
ble,  are  not  such  as  to  produce  an  undoubted  faith,  unless  the 
mind  be  divinely  assisted.*  And  you  have  told  us  that  the  teach- 
ing of  your  pastors  meets  with  a  firmer  and  readier  asssent 
among  minds  that  have  been  touched  by  the  Spirit  of  God.t 
Now  ^\\',  if  your  infallible  evidence  can  yet  be  ineffectual, 
through  the  blindness  and  wickedness  of  men,  you  cannot  say 
that  the  Scriptures  are  not  infallible  witnesses  of  their  own  au- 
thority, because  all  who  possess  them  do  not  receive  their  testi- 
mony. In  either  case  the  illumination  of  God's  Spirit  is  the 
means  by  which  faith  is  really  produced.  According  to  you,  it 
inclines  the  understanding  to  receive  the  teaching  of  the  pastors 
of  your  Church — according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster 
divines,  it  enlightens  the  mind  to  perceive  the  impressions  of 
Jehovah's  character  and  Jehovahs  hand,  in  the  sacred  oracles 
themselves. 

There  is,  then,  evidently,  a  fifth  supposition  by  which  an 
humble  inquirer  after  truth  may  be  assured  of  the  divine  inspi- 
ration and  canonical  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  God, 
himself,  may  be  his  teacher,  and  the  illumination  of  his  Spirit 
may  be  the  means  by  which,  from  infallible  evidence  contained 
in  the  books  themselves,  their  divine  inspiration  may  be  cer- 
tainly collected.  Whether  true  or  false,  right  or  wrong,  this 
has  been  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  God  from  the  beginning.^ 

*  "  Argumenta  quae  articulos  fidei  nostrse  credibiles  faciunt  non  talia  sunt 
ut  fidem  omnino  indubitatam  reddant,  nisi  mens  divinitus  adjuvetur." — De  Grat. 
et  Lib.  Arh.  lib.  vi.  cap.  .3. 

t  "  We  should  ever  bear  in  mind,  too,  that  if  this  be  the  method  adopted  by 
Almighty  God  ;  if  in  reality,  as  the  hypothesis  requires,  he  speaks  to  that  indi- 
vidual through  this  teacher.  His  divine  grace  will  influence  the  mind  of  the 
novice  to  yield  a  more  ready  and  firm  assent,  than  the  tendency  of  our  nature, 
and  the  unaided  motives  of  human  authority  would  produce." — Letter  I. 

t  As  a  specimen  of  what  have  been  the  sentiments  of  distinguished  writere, 
I  give  a  few  extracts,  selected  from  the  midst  of  many  others  equally  striking, 
which  may  be  found  arranged  in  Owen's  admirable  Discourse  on  the  Reason  of 
Faith. —  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  359,  scq.  The  following  passage  from  Clemens 
Alexandrinus  is  remarkable,  as  asserting  at  once  the  sufficiency  of  Scripture  and 
the  right  of  privat*'  judgment  in  opposition  to  all  hutnan  nufhority  : 


44  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

And  before  you  can  hope  to  overthrow  it,  you  must  be  prepared 
to  prove,  vi^hat,  I  think,  you  will  find  an  irksome  undertaking, 
that  the  Scriptures  do  not  bear  any  signs  or  marks  characteristic 
of  their  author,  and  that  God's  grace  will  not  be  vouchsafed  to 

Ov  yap  aTrXwff  aTro<paivojx£vois  avOpcotroig  ■!rpoa£-)(^oiix£v  oig  kui  avrairocpaivedii  tir  icrji 
eh<7Tiv.  Et  ^'  ovK  0-px^'-  ^0*'°^'  (i''^^^^  enreiv  to  So^av,  aWa  TfiaTWffaaOai  Set  to  Xe^Oev' 
ov  TTjv  e^  avdpwnoiv  avaixevo[i£v  fiapTvpiav,  aWa  tt)  tov  l^vpiov  (puvt]  TiiaTovixaOa  to  ^tjtov- 
usvov.  'H  -naafjiv  airoSet^ecov  ex^yyvoTepa  //aXXoi/  6e  rf  nave  UTroSei^is  ovaa  rvyx^avei. 
OvTCjg  ovv  Kai  ^/i£tff  at'  avTWv  Trepi  avroiv  tojv  ypa(pcjv  TtXeioiS  anoSeiKvvvTes  ek  Trtorccos 
ireiBoixeda  amSsiKTiKcos. — Strom,  lib.  vii.  cap.  16.  "For  we  would  not  attend  or 
give  credit  simply  to  the  definitions  of  men,  seeing  we  have  a  right  also  to  define 
in  contradiction  mito  them.  And  as  it  is  not  sufficient  merely  to  say  or  assert 
what  appears  to  be  the  truth,  but  also  to  beget  a  belief  of  what  is  spoken,  we 
expect  not  the  testimony  of  men  but  confirm  that  which  is  inquired  about  with 
the  voice  of  the  Lord,  which  is  more  full  and  firm  than  any  demonstration  ; 
yea,  which  rather  is  the  only  demonstration.  Thus,  we,  taking  our  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Scripture  out  of  the  Scripture,  are  assured  by  faith  as  by  demon- 
stration." 

Basil  on  Psalm  115,  says : — Tliorff,  ov^^  h  yEo^itTpiKais  avayKoig.  aXA'  n  tuis  tov 
TTVEvnaTos  EVEpysiais  sKyivoi/.Evri.  "  Faith  is  not  the  effect  of  geometrical  demon- 
strations, but  of  the  efficacy  of  the  Spirit." 

Nemes.de  Horn.  cap.  2. — H  twv  Oeimv  Xoyiwi/  St6aa-Ka\ta  Ta  irtaTov  ad)^  EavTrjs 
exovaa  6ia  to  QEoirvEvaTov  Elvai.  "  The  teaching  of  the  divine  oracles  has  its 
credibility  from  itself,  because  of  their  divine  inspiration." 

The  words  of  St.  Austin  (Conf.  lib.  ii.  cap.  3)  are  too  well  known  to 
require  to  be  cited. 

The  second  Council  of  Orange,  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  in  its 
5th  and  7th  canons  is  explicit  to  my  purpose.  Fleury,  h.  xxxii.  12. — Si  quis 
sicut  augmentum  ita  etiam  initium  fidei,  ipsumque  credulitatis  affectum,  non 
per  gratiae  donum,  id  est,  per  inspirationem  Spiritus  Sancti,  corrigentem  volun- 
tatem  nostram  ab  infidelitate  ad  fideni,ab  impietate  ad  pietatem,  sed  naturaliter 
nobis  inesse  dicit,  apostolicis  dogmatibus  adversarius  approbatur.  Si  quis  per 
naturae  vigorem  bonum  aliquod  quod  ad  salutem  pertinet  vitae  aeternae  cogitare 
ut  expedit  aut  eligere,  sive  salutari,  id  est,  evangelicae  praedicationi  consentire 
posse  affimiat  absque  illuminatione  et  inspiratione  Spiritus  Sancti,  qui  dat  om- 
nibus suavitatem  consentiendo  et  credendo  veritati,  haeretico  fallitur  spiritu. 
"  If  any  one  say  that  the  beginning  or  increase  of  faith  and  the  very  affection 
of  belief  is  in  us,  not  by  the  gift  of  grace,  that  is,  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  correcting  our  will  from  infidelity  to  faith,  from  impiety  to  piety,  but  by 
nature,  he  is  an  enemy  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostles.  If  any  man  affirm  that 
he  can  by  the  vigor  of  nature  think  any  thing  good  which  pertains  to  salvation 
as  he  ought,  or  choose,  or  consent  to  saving,  that  is,  to  evangelical  preaching 
without  the  iliiiminatinn  and  inspiration  of  tho  Holy  Spirit,  who  gives  to  all  the 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  45 

the  humble  inquirer  to  enable  him  to  perceive,  according  to  the 
prayer  of  the  Psalmist,  *'  wondrous  things  out  of  his  law." — 
Unless  you  can  disprove  this  fifth  hypothesis,  and  show  it  to  be 
what  you  have  asserted  of  three  that  you  have  named,  neither 
"  practicable  nor  efficient,"  your  triumphant  argument  vanishes 
into  air  ;  it  violates  the  very  first  law  of  that  species  of  complex 

sweet  relish  in  consenting  to  and  believing  the  truth,  he  is  deceived  by  an  he- 
retical spirit." 

Arnobius  advers.  Gentes,  lib.  3,  c.  l,says  :  "  Neque  enim  stare  sine  asserto- 
ribus  non  potest  religio  Christiana  1  Aut  eo  esse  comprobatur  vera,  si  adstipu- 
latores  habuerit  plurimos,  et  auctoritatem  ab  hominibus  sumpserit  ?  Suis  ilia 
contenta  est  viribus  et  veritatis  propriae  fundaminibus  nititur  nee  spoliatur  sua 
vi,  etam  si  nullum  habeat  vindicem,  immo  si  linguae  omnes  contra  faciant  con- 
traque  nitantur  et  ad  fidem  illius  abrogandam  consensionis  unitae  animositate 
conspirent."  "  Shall  it  be  said  that  the  Christian  religion  cannot  maintain 
itself,  without  the  aid  of  men  to  vindicate  its  truth  ?  Or  shall  its  truth  be 
said  to  depend  on  the  warranty  and  authority  of  man?  No,  Christianity  is 
sufficient  for  itself,  in  its  own  inherent  strength,  and  stands  firm  upon  the  ba- 
sis of  its  own  inherent  truth  ;  it  could  lose  none  of  its  power,  though  it  had  not 
a  single  advocate.  Nay,  it  would  maintain  its  ground,  though  all  the  tongues 
of  men  were  to  contradict  and  resist  it,  and  to  combine  with  rage  and  fury  to 
effect  its  destruction." 

The  great  Athanasius  (Orat.  Cont.  Gent.  c.  1)  says: 

A.VTapK£ii  eiaiv  ai  ayiai  kui  OeoTrvevgrot  ypatpai  tt.ooj  rriv  r>7?j  aXrfOeiai  a-rrayyeXiau. 
"  The  Christian  faith  carries  within  itself  the  discovery  of  its  own  authority,  and 
the  Holy  Scriptures  which  God  has  inspired  are  all-sufficient  in  themselves,  for 
the  evidence  of  their  own  truth."  There  is  a  beautiful  passage  to  the  same 
purport  in  Baptista  Mantuanus  de  Patient,  lib.  3,  cap.  2.  It  concludes  ^as  fol- 
lows :  "  Cur  ergo  non  omncs  credunt  evangelio  ?  Quod  non  omnes  trahuntur  a 
Deo.  Sed  longaopus  est  disputatione  ?  Firmiter  sacris  Scripturis  ideo  credimus 
quod  divinam  inspirationera  intus  accepimus."  "  Why,  then,  do  not  all  believe 
the  Gospel  ?  Because  all  are  not  drawn  of  God.  But  what  need  of  any  long 
disputation  ]  We  therefore  firmly  believe  the  Scripture  because  we  have  re- 
ceived a  Divine  inspiration."  Those  who  wish  to  find  a  large  collection  of 
Patristic  passages  bearing  on  this  point,  will  meet  with  ample  satisfaction  in 
chap.  ix.  of  Good's  Rule  of  Faith.  The  whole  subject  is  ably  discussed  in 
Calvin's  Institutes,  Owen  on  the  Reason  of  Faith  and  his  kindred  treatise, 
and  Halyburton's  inimitable  essay  on  the  Nature  of  Faith.  Some  valuable 
hints  may  also  be  found  in  Lancaster's  Bampton  Lectures,  Jackson  on  the 
Creed,  and  Chalmers'  Evidences.  I  cannot  forbear,  however,  to  advert  to  tlie 
two  beautiful  illustrations  of  the  power  of  the  Scriptures  to  authenticate  them- 
selves, which  Justin  Martyr  and  Francis  Junius  have  given  us  in  their  accounts 
of  their  own  conversion. 


46  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

syllogism  to  which  it  may  be  easily  reduced.  You  have  beaten 
your  drum,  and  flourished  your  trumpets,  and  shouted  victory, 
when  you  had  not  been  even  in  reach  of  the  enemy's  camp. 
If  a  man,  sir,  reasoning  upon  the  seasons  of  the  year,  should 
undertake  to  prove  that  it  must  he  winter,  because  it  was  neitlier 
spring  nor  autumn,  his  argument  would  be  precisely  like  yours 
for  an  infallible  tribunal  of  faith.  His  hearers  might  well  ask 
why  it  might  not  be  summer,  and  your  readers  may  well  ask  why 
this  fifth  supposition,  which  you  have  so  strangely  suppressed 
when  it  must  have  been  under  your  eyes,  may  not  be,  after  all 
your  elaborate  discussion,  the  true  method  of  God.  In  this  an- 
cient doctrine  of  the  Church  of  God,  there  may  be  an  escape 
from  your  fatal  dilemma,  and  men  may  find  a  sure  and  infalli- 
ble passage  to  heaven  without  making  a  journey  to  Rome  to  be 
guided  in  the  way.  Upon  your  principles  of  reasoning,  dilem- 
mas are  easily  made,  but  very  fortunately  they  are  just  as  easily 
avoided.  Their  horns,  weak  and  powerless  as  a  papal  bull,  can- 
not gore  the  stubborn  and  refractory.  He  who  should  infer  that 
a  sick  man  must  be  scorching  with  fever  because  he  is  not  ach- 
ing in  all  his  bones  with  a  shivering  ague,  would  in  this  pitiful 
foolery  present  a  forcible  example  of  the  sort  of  sophism  in 
which  you  have  boasted  as  triumphant  argument. 

2.  Your  reasoning  is  not  only  radically  defective  in  conse- 
quence of  an  imperfect  enumeration  of  particulars,  but  fatally  un- 
successful in  establishing  the  impossibility  of  those  which  you 
have  actually  undertaken  to  refute.  The  minor  premiss  is  as 
lame  as  the  major,  and  your  argument,  at  best,  can  yield  us 
nothing  but  a  "lame  and  impotent  conclusion."  Your  fourth 
method  derives  its  claims  to  our  confidence  and  regard  from  the 
pretended  fact,  that  all  other  schemes  are  neither  "  practicable 
nor  efficient."  Unless,  therefore,  this  can  be  made  clearly  to 
appear,  your  reasoning  must  fall  to  the  ground.  Have  you 
jjroved  it?  So  far  from  it,  that  the  objections  which  you  have 
adduced  against  your  first  three  methods,  apply  just  as  power- 
fully to  the  fourth;  and  prove,  if  they  prove  any  thing,  that  nei- 
ther one  of  the  methods  specified  by  you,  can  possibly  be  the 
truth.  The  arguments,  for  instance,  which  you  have  employed 
to  overthrow  the  Protestant  theory  of  private  judgment,   as  im- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  47 

plying  the  responsibility  of  men  for  their  opinions,  and  a  conse- 
quent exemption  from  all  human  authority,  may  be  employed, 
with  equal  success,  to  demolish  the  pretensions  of  an  infallible 
tribunal,  or  to  show  that  such  a  body  can  neither  be  *'  practica- 
ble nor  efficient." 

Why  then  is  private  judgment  inadmissible?  Why  is  it  that 
each  man  is  not  at  liberty  to  examine  for  himself,  and  form  his 
own  opinions  upon  those  solemn  subjects  in  which  his  own  indi- 
vidual happiness  is  so  deeply  concerned  ?     Because,*  according 

*  "  The  arguments  in  this  course,"  (that  is,  in  determining  for  one's  self,) 
"  would  be  of  two  classes,  external  and  internal  ;  either  or  both  of  which  would 
form  matter  for  investigation.  He  might  seek,  as  you^have  endeavored  to  do, 
whether  there  exists  a  sufficient  mass  of  testimony  to  establish  the  fact  or  facts, 
that  God  did,  at  certain  times  and  on  certain  occasions,  exercise  over  particu- 
lar writers,  the  supernatural  influence  of  inspiration  ;  or  from  a  consideration 
of  the  perfection  of  the  Scriptures,  he  might  conclude  that  they  were  above  the 
power  of  unaided  men,  and  therefore  must  be  of  divine  origin.  To  perform  the 
first  properly,  he  must  be  deeply  versed  in  the  Latin,  the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew, 
perhaps,  too,  in  several  modern  languages  ;  must  have  at  his  command  a  more 
extensive  library  than,  I  believe,  Charleston  can  boast  of;  must  spend,  conse- 
quently, many  long  years  of  study  in  acquiring  those  languages,  and  obtaining 
and  searching  out  the  thousand  and  one  testimonies  scattered  through  a  hundred 
musty  tomes,  and  in  acquiring  that  thorough  knowledge  of  times,  of  men,  of 
writings,  which  will  enable  him  to  judge  of  the  credibility  of  those  witnesses  ; 
must,  finally,  possess  an  unrivalled,  almost  supernatural  accuracy  of  judgment 
to  reconcile  this  mass  of  conflicting  statements,  and,  distinguishing  which  are 
worthy  and  which  unworthy  of  credit,  to  conclude  confidently  and  evidently, 
in  favor  of,  or  against  the  inspiration  of  the  books  examined.  The  second  re- 
quires a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures  in  the  original  Hebrew, 
Greek  and  Chaldean,  and  in  the  ancient  versions  in  Samaritan,  Copht,  Arabic, 
Syriac,  Greek  and  Latin,  and  with  the  ancient  manuscripts  ;  and  the  abihty 
to  apply  to  all  this  the  subtle  rules  of  refined  criticism,  in  order  to  determine, 
in  the  first  place,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  the  exact  language  and  mean- 
ing of  the  sacred  writers;  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  abilities  and  acquire- 
ments of  each  writer,  and  the  state  of  science  and  already  revealed  religion  in 
his  country  and  age,  in  order  to  see  to  what  extent  of  perfection  his  own  pow- 
ers with  such  aids  could  naturally  carry  him  ;  the  faculty  also,  of  duly  appreci- 
ating the  beauties  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  that  knowledge  of  Chemistry, 
of  Natural  History,  of  Geology,  of  the  History  of  Nations,  and  of  almost  every 
science,  which  may  enable  him  fully  and  satisfactorily  to  refute  all  the  objec- 
tions brought  from  these  different  sources  against  the  intrinsic  truth,  and  con- 
sequently, Internal  evidence  of  the  Divine  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.     Need 


48  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

to  you,  unless  a  man  could  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and 
angels,  unless  he  comprehended  all  mysteries  and  all  knowledge, 
unless,  in  other  words,  his  mind  was  a  living  encyclopaedia  of 
science,  he  must  be  incapable  of  estimating  properly  the  his- 
torical and  internal  evidences  of  the  divine  original  of  the 
Scriptures.  Like  the  Jewish  Cabalists,  you  have  rendered  the 
judgments  of  the  people  utterly  worthless  to  them  in  that  mat- 
ter, which,  of  all  others,  is  most  important  to  their  happiness. 
Maimonides*  goes  a  little  beyond  you.  He  not  only  makes 
Logic,  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy  indispensable  to  our 
jirogress  in  divine  knowledge,  but  absolutely  necessary  in  order 
to  settle  i\\Q  foundation  of  religion  in  the  being  and  attributes  of 
God;  and  according  to  him,  those  who  are  unfurnished  with 
these  scientific  accomplishments,  must  either  settle  down  into 
dreary  atheism,  or  make  up  their  deficiencies  by  submitting  im- 
plicitly to  cabalistical  instruction !  You,  I  presume,  would 
grant  that  a  man  could  be  assured  of  the  existence  of  the  Deity, 
without  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew, 
Syriac,  Chaldee,  and  divers  modern  tongues,  or  without  being 
master  of  Mathematics,  Chemistry,  Geology,  Natural  History  and 
Physics.  These  things,  on  your  scheme,  are  only  necessary  to 
settle  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures. 
4  Let  us  grant,  for  a  moment,  that  all  this  immense  apparatus 
of  learning  is  necessary  to  settle  a  plain,  simple,  historical  fact ; 
what  becomes  of  the  skill  and  competency  of  your  infallible 
hocly?  1{  it  is  to  decide  according  to  the  evidence,  and  all  these 
boundless  attainments  are  absolutely  requisite  in  order  to  a  just 
appreciation  of  the  evidence,  every  individual  member  of  your 
unerring  corps  must  be  deeply  versed  in  all  human  lore,  as  well 
as  blessed  with  an  "  almost  supernatural  accuracy  of  judgment," 
before  the  body  can  be  qualified,  according  to  your  statements, 
to  make  an  infallible  decision.  Suppose,  sir,  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica were  ransacked,  how  many  individuals  could  be  found,  each 
of  whom  should  possess  the  varied  and  extensive  attainments 
which  you  make  indispensable  in  settling  a  plain  question  of  fact 

I  say,  it  is  all  important  that  he  should  be  able  to  possess  and  peruse  the  books, 
on  whose  inspiration  he  is  thus  to  decide  ?" — Letter  I 
*  More  Neboeh,pars  i.  c.  .34, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  49 

connected  with  the  events  of  an  earlier  age  ?  How  many  of 
the  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Rome  would  be  entitled  to  a  seat 
in  a  general  council  composed  only  of  those  who  could  abide 
your  test  of  competency  to  decide  on  matters  of  faith  ?  Certain 
it  is,  sir,  that  there  was  not  a  single  individual  in  the  whole 
Council  of  Trent,  who  possessed  even  a  tithe  of  the  learning 
without  which,  in  your  view,  an  accurate  decision  is  hopeless. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  those  holy  Fathers  seemed  to  be  fully 
persuaded  that 

"  Hebrew  roots  were  only  found 
To  flourish  best  in  barren  ground." 

Their  skill  in  Samaritan,  Coptic,  Arabic,  and  Syriac  versions, 
may  be  readily  conjectured  from  their  profound  acquaintance 
with  the  original  text.  If  they  were  deeply  versed  in  the  mys- 
teries of  Chemistry  and  Geology,  they  must  have  been  endowed 
with  an  extraordinary  prolepsis  which  has  no  parallel  in  the 
recorded  history  of  man.  How,  then,  could  these  venerable 
men  decide  with  "  absolute  certainty,''  when  all  the  evidence  in 
the  case  was  high  above,  out  of  their  reach  ?  You  tell  us,  sir, 
that  they  made  their  decision  "  after  patient  examination,  and  a 
thorough  investigation  of  all  the  evidence  they  could  find  on  the 
subject."  But  yet,  upon  your  own  showing,  the  historical  and 
internal  proofs  of  inspiration  were  inaccessible  not  only  to  the 
prelates  themselves,  but  to  the  whole  rabble  of  divines  who 
assisted  them  in  their  deliberations.  How  does  it  happen,  then, 
that  their  decision  is  entitled  to  be  received  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty? But  perhaps  you  will  say  that  the  Fathers  possessed 
some  other  evidence — that  they  themselves  were  supernaturalli/ 
inspired,  or  irresistibly  guided  by  God's  grace  to  make  an  un- 
erring decision?  To  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  your  argu- 
ment, in  order  to  be  conclusive,  requires  you  to  show  that  the 
same  supernatural  assistance  cannot  be  vouchsafed  to  individuals 
as  well  as  to  a  body,  I  would  simply  ask  hoio  could  the  Fathers 
knoio  that  they  were  inspired  ?  You  have  made  all  human 
hioivhdge  a  necessary  means  of  judging  of  inspiration.  A  man 
must  be  able  "  to  refute  all  the  objections  brought  from  these 
different  sources  against  the  intrinsic  truth,  and,  consequently, 


50  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

internal  evidence  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures." 
If  then,  a  man  cannot  be  satisfied  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  until  he  is  able  to  perceive  the  intrinsic  truth  of  their 
teachino-3,  that  is,  until  he  can  show  that  scientific  objections 
are  really  groundless,  how  can  he  be  satisfied  of  his  own  inspi- 
ration until  he  can,  in  like  manner,  determine  that  the  propo- 
sitions suggested  to  him  are  not  contradictory  to  any  truth 
received  or  taught  in  the  wide  circle  of  human  science?  And 
how,  I  beseech  you,  can  the  people  be  assured  that  any  body  of 
men  has  been  supernaturally  guided,  until  ihei/  are  able  to  refute 
all  the  objections  from  all  the  departments  of  human  knowledge 
to  the  decrees  of  the  body  ?  Will  you  say  that  inspiration,  once 
settled,  answers  all  objections?  Very  true.  But  how  is  the 
inspiration  to  be  settled  ?  You  say  that  an  incUviclual  cannot 
iudo-e  of  inspiration  until  he  is  able  to  refute  all  objections  and 
to  defend  the  truths  that  profess  to  be  inspired.  No  more,  I 
apprehend,  can  ?ihody  of  individuals.  But  a  body  of  individuals 
may  be  inspired  to  judge  of  the  inspiration  of  others.  But  how 
are  they  to  determine  their  own  inspiration?  They  must  still 
be  able  to  refute  all  possible  objections,  and  perceive  the  intrin- 
sic truth  of  what  they  are  taught,  themselves,  or  their  own 
inspiration  is  uncertain,  and  the  people  need  it  just  as  much  to 
judge  of  the  inspiration  of  a  council  as  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures.  So  that  your  circle  of  science  becomes  necessary 
sooner  or  later  for  a  body  of  men,  if  it  be  necessary  for  a  private 
individual. 

You  perceive,  tlien,  that  your  argument  against  the  rights 
of  the  people  may  be  turned  with  a  desolating  edge  against 
yourself  Like  an  unnatural  mother,  it  devours  its  own  conclu- 
sion. If,  sir,  the  infallibility  of  a  body  depends  upon  the  illumi- 
nation of  God's  Spirit,  it  will  be  hard  to  show  why  God  can 
supernaturally  enlighten  every  man  in  a  special  assembly,  and 
yet  be  unable  to  enlighten  private  individuals  in  their  separate 
capacity.  How  the  mere  fact  of  human  congregation,  under 
any  circumstances,  can  confer  additional  power  upon  God's 
Holy  Spirit,  you  have  nowhere  explained,  and  I  think  that  you 
will  hardly  undertake  the  task. 

Upon  your  own  showing,  then,  your  triumphant  argument  is  a 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  51 

beggarly  sophism.  Your  objections  to  private  judgment  prove 
too  much,  and  therefore  prove  nothing.  Whatever  is  simply 
necessary  to  establish  inspiration,  applies  as  much  to  the  inspira- 
tion of  Trent,  as  to  the  inspiration  of  David,  Isaiah,  and  Paul. 
As  I  am  now  exclusively  engaged  in  the  examination  of  your 
argument,  I  shall  not  turn  aside  from  my  purpose  to  indicate  the 
manner  in  which  a  plain,  unlettered  man  can  become  morally 
certain,  from  the  historical  and  collateral  evidences  of  inspira- 
tion, that  the  authors  of  the  Bible  wrote  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Your  long,  involved,  and  intricate  account  of 
the  learning  and  attainments  required  for  this  end,  could  easily 
be  shown,  and  has  been  triumphantly  shown,  to  be  a  mere  phan- 
tom of  the  brain.  You  are  fond,  sir,  of  raising  imaginary  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  the  humble  inquirer  after  truth,  in  order 
that  you  may  find  a  ready  market  for  the  wares  of  Rome.  But 
in  this  instance,  sir,  your  own  feet  have  been  caught  in  the  pit 
which  your  hands  have  dug.  When  you  condescend  to  inform 
me  how  the  Fathers  of  Trent  could  decide  with  infallible  cer- 
tainty upon  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  without  the  learning 
which  is  necessary,  in  your  view,  to  understand  the  evidence, 
if  they  themselves  were  uninspired — or  how,  if  inspired,  they 
could,  without  this  learning,  either  be  certain  themselves  of  the 
fact  or  establish  it  with  infallible  certainty  to  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple, who,  without  your  learning,  must  judge  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  holy  Council — when  consistently  with  your  principles  you 
resolve  these  difficulties,  one  of  the  objections  to  your  argument 
will  cease.  Until  then  it  must  continue  to  be  a  striking  example 
of  that  sort  of  paralogism  by  which  the  same  premises /jrorc  and 
disprove  at  the  same  time. 

3.  Bijt,  sir,  the  chapter  of  your  misfortunes  is  not  yet  closed. 
Your  favorite,  triumphant,  oft-repeated  argument  not  only  labors 
under  the  two  serious  and  fatal  defects  which  have  already  been 
illustrated,  but,  what  is  just  as  bad,  even  upon  the  supposition 
that  it  is  logically  sound,  it  f\iils  to  answer  your  purpose.  It 
does  not  yield  you,  what  your  cause  requires,  an  infallible  con- 
clusion. At  its  best  estate,  it  is  a  broken  reed,  which  can  only 
pierce  the  bosom  of  him  that  leans  on  it.  You  infer  that 
a   certain  plan    must  be  the  true   one,  because  all    others    are 


52  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

false.  It  is  evident  that  it  must  be  absolutely  certain,  that  the 
others  are  false,  before  it  can  be  absolutely  certain  that  the  one 
insisted  on  is  true.  The  degree  of  certainty  which  attaches  to 
any  hypothesis  drawn  from  the  destruction  of  all  other  supposi- 
tions, is  just  the  degree  of  certainty  with  which  the  others  have 
been  removed.  The  measure  of  their  falsehood  is  the  measure 
o^its  truth.  If  there  be  any  probability  in  them,  that  probability 
amounts  to  a  positive  argument  against  the  conclusion  erected 
on  their  ruins. 

Now,  sir,  upon  the  gratuitous  assumption  that  your  argu- 
ment is  legitimate  and  regular,  your  conclusion  cannot  be  in- 
fallible, unless  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  three  methods  of 
determining  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  which  you  have 
pronounced  to  be  neither  "practicable  nor  efficient,"  are  grossly 
and  palpably  absurd.  They  must  be  unquestionably  false,  or 
your  conclusion  cannot  be  unquestionably  true.  If  there  be  the 
least  degree  of  probability  in  favor  of  any  one  of  these  schemes, 
that  probability,  however  slight,  is  fatal  to  the  infallible  certainty 
required  by  your  cause.  Your  conclusion,  in  such  a  case,  can 
only  result  from  a  comparison  of  opposing  probabilities ;  it  can 
only  have  a  preponderance  of  evidence,  and,  therefore,  can  only 
be  probable  at  best. 

I  venture  to  assert  upon  the  approved  principles  of  papal 
casuistry,  that  two,  most  certainly,  of  your  condemned  suppo- 
sitions are  just  as  likely  to  be  true,  or  can,  at  least,  be  as  harm- 
lessly adopted  as  that  which  you  have  taken  into  favor.  We  are 
told  by  your  doctors,  that  a  probable  opinion  may  be  safely  fol- 
lowed, and  their  standard  of  probability  is  the  approbation  of  a 
doctor  or  the  example  of  the  good — "  Sufficit  opinio  alicujus 
gravis  doctoris,  aut  bonorum  exemplum." 

Try  your  third  supposition  by  this  standard,  and  does  it  not 
become  exceedingly  probable?  Why  have  you  passed  it  over 
with  so  vague,  superficial,  and  unsatisfactory  a  notice?  Were 
you  afraid  that  there  was  death  in  the  pot?  You,  surely,  sir, 
cannot  be  ignorant  that  scores  of  your  leading  divines  have  boldly 
maintained  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope — a  single  individual, 
whom  they  have  regarded  as  divinely  commissioned  to  instruct 
the  faithful.      The  Council  of  Florence  decided  that  the  Pope 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  63 

was  primate  of  the  Universal  Church ;  that  he  is  the  true  Lieu- 
tenant of  Christ — the  father  and  teacher  of  all  Christians;  and 
that  unto  h'lm  full  power  is  committed  to  feed,  direct,  and  govern 
the  Catholic  Church  under  Christ.  He,  then,  it  would  seem,  is 
the  very  individual  to  whom  that  Council  would  refer  us  for 
satisfactory  information  concerning  the  canon  of  Scripture  and 
every  other  point  of  faith.  The  prelates  of  the  Lateran  Council 
under  Leo  X.  offered  the  most  fulsome  and  disgusting  flatteries 
to  that  skeptical  Pontiff,  calling  him  King  of  Kings,  and  Mon- 
arch of  the  earth,  and  ascribing  to  him  all  power,  above  all 
powers  of  heaven  and  earth.  The  Legates  of  Trent  would  not 
permit  the  question  of  the  Pope's  authority  to  be  discussed ;  be- 
cause the  Pontiff  himself,  while  he  was  yet  ignorant  of  the  tem- 
per of  the  Fathers,  was  secretly  afraid  that  they  might  follow  the 
examples  of  Constance  and  Basil.  Pighius,  Gretser,  Bellarmin, 
and  Gregory  of  Valentia,  have  ascribed  infallibility  to  the  head 
of  your  Church,  in  the  most  explicit  and  unmeasured  terms.* 

*  Gregory  of  Valentia,  carried  the  doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  so 
far,  as  to  maintain  that  his  decisions  were  unerring,  whether  made  with  care 
and  attention  or  not.     His  words  are : 

"  Sive  Pontifex,  in  definiendo  studium  adhibeat,  sive  non  adhibeat ;  modo 
tamen  controversiam  definiat,  infallibiliter  certe  definiet,  atque  adeo  re  ipsa  uti- 
tur  authoritate  sibi  a  Christo  concessa." — Analy's  Fid.  Q,  6.  "  Whether  the 
Pontiff  apply  care  and  attention  or  not  in  his  determinations,  yet,  provided  he 
is  determining  controversy,  his  decisions  are  certainly  infallible,  and  so  in  reality 
he  uses  the  authority  granted  him  by  Christ." 

Augustinus  Triumphus  observes :  "  Novum  symbolum  condere  solum  ad 
Papam  spectat,  quia  est  caput  fidei  Christianas,  cujus  auctoritate  omnia  quae  ad 
fidem  spectant  firmantur  et  roborantur." — Q.  59,  Art.  1.  "  To  compose  a  new 
creed  pertains  to  the  Pope  alone,  because  he  is  the  head  of  the  Christian  faith, 
by  whose  authority  all  things  pertaining  to  faith  are  confirmed." 

This  same  writer,  treating  of  ecclesiastical  power,  observes  again :  "  Error 
est  non  credere  Pontificem  Romanum  universalis  ecclesiae  pastorem,  Petri  suc- 
cessorem,  et  Christi  Vicarium,  supra  temporalia  et  spiritualia  universalem  non 
habere  primatum,  in  quem,  quandoque  multi  labuntur,  dictse  potestatis  igno- 
rantiae,  quae  cum  sit  infinita  eo  quod  magnus  est  dominus  et  magna  virtus  ejus 
et  magnitudinis  ejus  non  est  finis,  omnis  creatus  intellectus  in  ejus  persecutatione 
invenitur  deficere."  "  It  is  an  error  not  to  believe  that  the  Roman  Pontifi',  the  pas- 
tor of  the  Church  universal,  the  successor  of  Peter  and  vicar  of  Christ,  has  not  a 
universal  primacy  over  things  temporal  and  spiritual ;  into  which  error  many 
are  apt  to  fall  through  ignorance  of  said  power,  wliich  is  infinite,  because  great 


54  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

It  is  generally  understood,  too,  that  this  doctrine  is  maintained 
by  the  whole  body  of  the  Jesuits.  To  my  mind,  wicked  and 
blasphemous  as  it  is,  this  is  a  less  exceptionable  doctrine  than 
that  which  you  have  defended.  A  single  individual  can  be  more 
easily  reached,  more  prompt  in  his  decisions,  and  is  always 
ready  to  answer  the  calls  of  the  faithful.  To  collect  a  council 
is  a  slow  and  tedious  process,  and  the  infallibility  slumbers  while 
the  Council  is  dissolved. 

The  infallibility  of  a  single  individual,  which  is  your  third  hy- 
pothesis, is  probable  upon  the  well  known  principles  of  your  most 
distinguished  casuists.  You  ought  to  have  shown,  therefore, 
that  this  opinion  is  palpably  absurd.  Write  a  book  upon  this 
subject  and  send  it  to  Rome,  and  it  may  possibly  lead  to  your 
promotion  in  the  Church.  However,  let  Gregory  XVI.  be  first 
gathered  to  his  fathers,  as  he  might  not  brook  so  flat  a  contradic- 
tion to  his  own  published  opinions.*    I  am  inclined  to  think  that, 

is  the  Lord  and  great  is  his  might,  and  of  his  greatness  there  is  no  bound  ;  there- 
fore every  created  understanding  must  fail  in  the  searching  of  him." — Prcpf.  P. 
John  22.  But  the  cUmax  of  absurdity  and  blasphemy  is  fairly  reached  in  the 
following  passage  from  Bellarmin,  De  Pont,  4,  1  :  "  Si  autem  Papa  erraret 
praecipiendo  vitia,  vel  prohibendo  virtutem,  teneretur  ecclesia  credere  vitia  e.sse 
bona  et  virtutes  malas,  nisi  vellet  contra  conscientiam  peccare."  The  plain 
meaning  is,  if  the  Pope  should  command  men  to  violate  God's  laws,  they  are 
bound  to  do  it.     In  other  words,  the  Pope  is  above  the  Almighty. 

Scores  of  passages  to  the  like  effect  maybe  collected  from  the  writings  of 
the  Popes  themselves. 

*  I  have  before  me  the  French  translation  of  a  book,  written  by  the  present 
Pontiff,  when  he  was  Cardinal  Maur  Coppellari,  entitled  the  Triumph  of  the 
Holy  See  and  of  the  Church,  in  which  the  dogma  of  the  Pope's  infallibility  is 
fully  and  curiously  discussed.  His  Holiness  repudiates,  with  horror,  the  Gal- 
lican  doctrine  of  the  superiority  of  Councils,  and  stoutly  maintains  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church  is  an  absolute  monarchy,  of  which  the  Pontiff  is  the  in- 
fallible head.  It  is  a  little  singular  that  A.  P.F.  should  dismiss  with  contempt, 
as  unworthy  of  discussion,  the  precise  opinions  which  his  master  at  Rome  holds 
to  be  essential  to  the  stability  of  the  faith  ;  and  whether  the  real  doctrine  of 
the  Papacy  is  more  likely  to  be  gathered  from  an  obscure  priest  or  from  the 
supreme  Father  of  the  faithful,  I  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  determine.  As  a 
specimen  of  the  Pope's  book,  I  give  two  extracts  at  random,  as  they  may  be 
found  in  the  French  version  of  Abbe  Jammes : 

"  Le  Pape,  ainsi  qu'  il  a  ete  prouve,  est  un  vrai  monarque  ;  done  il  doit 
etre  pourvu  des  moyens  necessaires  a  1'  exercice  de  son  autorite  monarchique. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  55 

to  the  majority  of  papal  minds,  there  is  so  much  probability  in 
this  third  opinion,  that  if  your  letter  had  been  written  by  a  Jesuit 
at  Rome,  it  would  in   fact,  have  been  made  the  infallible  conclii- 

Mais  le  moyen  le  plus  necessaires  k  cette  fin  sera  celui  qui  otera  tout  pre- 
texte  a.  ses  sujets  de  refuser  de  se  soumettre  k  ses  decisions  et  a  ses  lois,  et  son 
infaillibilite  seule  peut  avoir  cette  efticacite.  Done  le  Pape  est  infaillihle." — 
Prelim.  Dis.  Vol.  1.  p.  174,  §  82. 

"  Quoique,  aprcs  tous  ce  qui  a  ete  dit  jusqu'  d  present,  il  ne  dut  pas  etre 
nccessaire  de  rien  ajouter  d'  avantage,  je  chercherai  encore  k  les  tirer  de  leurs 
erreurs  pas  des  argumens  plus  pressans.  Parmi  toutes  les  societes,  celle-la 
seule  est  infaillible,qui  constitute  la  veritable  Eglise  ;  c'  est  de  foi :  mais  il  n'  y 
a  pas  de  veritable  Eglise  sans  Pierre  ;  nous  1'  avons  demontre :  done  1'  infailli- 
bilite appartiens  exclusivemens  k  la  societe  qui  est  unie  a  Pier/e  et  a  ses  succes- 
seurs.  Or  cette  union  avec  Pierre  ou  avec  le  Pape  ne  serait  pas  une  note  suf- 
fisante  pour  distinguer  entre  plusieurs  societes  celle  qui  serait  infaillible,si  cette 
union  ne  contribuait  en  quelque  maniere  pas  son  concours  a  faire  jouir  cette  so- 
ciete du  privilege  de  1'  infaillibilite  ;  done  cette  doit  reehnent  y  contribuer  et  y 
concourir.  Mais  1'  Eglise  doit  avoir,  sans  ses  definitions,  une  infaillibilite  per- 
petuelle  et  durable  jusqu'  a  la  fin  des  siecles  ;  done  la  meme  perpetuite,  la  meme 
duree  jusqu'  a  la  fin  des  siecles  doit  etre  assuree  au  concours  de  cette  union  de 
I'  Eglise  avec  le  Pape,  a  lequelle  est  attachee  Tinfaillibilite  de  1'  Eglise  elle-meme. 
D'  ou  il  s'  ensuit  que,  dans  le  cas  d'  un  point  quelconque  a  definer,  il  sera  aussi 
vrai  de  dire,  avant  meme  qu'il  ait  lieu  que  ce  concours  positif  et  explicite  ne 
manquera  pas, qu'il  est  vrai  de  dire  que  1'  Eglise  est  infaillible  dans  le  decisions 
qu'  elle  portera,  et  qu'  elle  ne  tombera  pas  dans  1'  erreur.  Mais,  s'  il  est  certain 
que,  toutes  les  fois  qu'  il  s'  agira  de  definir  un  point  de  foi,  on  pourra  compter 
sur  le  concours  de  I'union  de  1'  Eglise  avec  le  Pape,  il  doit  etre  egalement  cer- 
tain que  Dieu  ne  permettra  jamais  que  le  Pape  ne  donne  pas  son  assentiment 
a  des  verites  de  foi,  puieque,  sans  ses  assentiment,  il  ne  saurait  y  avoir  de  veri- 
table definition  de  1'  Eglise.  Done,  si  ce  concours  doit  etre  continuel  et  per- 
petuel,  Dieu  devra  continuellement  et  perpetuellement  incliner  le  Pape  a  don- 
ner  son  assentiment  aux  verites  de  foi ;  et  il  ne  permettra  jamais  que  la  Pape, 
comme  tel,  s'  eloigne  de  la  vraie  croyance.  En  effet,  s'  il  yen  etait  pas  ainsi, 
et  que  Dieu  put  permettre  que  le  Pape,  en  cette  qualite  abandonnat  la  verite,  il 
pourrait  arriver  que  par  sa  primante  dans  1'  Eglise,  et  par  le  droit  qu'il  a  pour 
le  maintien  de  1'  unite,  comme  dit  saint  Thomas,  de  proposer  le  point  de  foi,  il 
entrainat  1' Eglise  avec  lui  dans  .1' erreur.  Done  Dieu  a  du  accorder  au  Pape, 
comme  tel,  le  privilege  d'une  infaillibilite  independantc  de  1' Eglise,  independ- 
ante  de  cette  societe,  a  1'  infaillibilite  de  laquelle  il  contribue  et  concours  par  le 
moyen  de  l'  union  de  celle-ce  avec  lui.  Les  novateurs  ne  peuvent  rejiter  cette 
consequence  sans  la  necessite  du  concours  du  Pape  ;  et  s'  ils  la  nient,  ils  se  ran- 
gent  parmi  les  schismatiques  et  les  protestans,  que  se  font  une  Eglise  separee  du 
Pape."— FoL  1,  chap.  2,pp  20G-8. 


56  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

sion.  Certain  it  is  that  you  have  not  offered  a  single  argument 
against  it.  You  play  off  upon  Esdras  and  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim, 
and  sundry  questions  which  ''  more  veteran  scholars  than  you" 
have  found  it  hard  to  decide,  and  then  conclude  with  inimitable 
self-complacency,  that  the  "  third  method  cannot  be  admitted." 
Sir,  when  you  write  again,  let  me  beseech  you  to  write  in  syllo- 
gisms. If  you  have  disproved  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope,  I  can- 
not find  your  premises ;  and  yet,  unless  you  have  done  it,  your 
triumphant  conclusion  is  a  mere  petitio  principii.  Your  own 
Doctors  will  rise  up  against  you  if  you  undertake  this  task — you 
are  self  condemned  if  you  do  not. 

Then  again,  your  first  hypothesis — the  theory  of  private 
judgment — must  have  some  little  probability  in  its  favor,  or  such 
mighty  minds  as  those  of  Newton,  Bacon,  Locke  and  Chilling- 
worth,  would  not  have  adopted  it  with  so  much  cordiality,  nor 
would  such  multitudes  of  the  race  have  sealed  their  regard  for  it 
at  the  stake,  the  gibbet,  and  the  wheel.  A  principle,  confessedly 
the  keystone  that  supports  the  arch  of  religious  liberty  ;  which 
emancipates  the  human  mind  from  ghostly  tyranny,  and  calls 
upon  the  nations  to  behold  their  God ;  which  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  the  glorious  fabric  of  American  freedom,  and  distinguish- 
es the  constitutions  of  all  our  States,  is  not  to  be  dismissed  with- 
out examination  as  grossly  false,  or  palpably  absurd.  The  condi- 
tions which  you  have  prescribed  for  its  exercise,  are  not  only 
arbitrary  and  capable  of  being  turned  to  capital  advantage  against 
you,  but  as  I  shall  show,  when  I  come  to  the  examination  of 
your  second  argument,  they  have  been  virtually  withdrawn  by 
yourself  You  have  actually  admitted,  sir,  all  that  the  friends  of 
private  judgment  deem  to  be  important  in  the  case.  According 
to  your  own  statement,  the  ignorant  and  unlearned  may  be  as- 
sured, upon  sufficient  grounds,  of  the  genuineness  and  authentici- 
ty/ of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament.  This  foundation  being 
laid,  inspiration  will  naturally  follow.  So  that,  notwithstanding 
all  your  objections,  private  judgment  remains  unaffected,  in  the 
strength  and  glory  of  its  intrinsic  probability. 

How  then,  upon  a  just  estimate  of  its  merits,  stands  your 
boasted  argument?  Why,  there  are  only  four  suppositions  that 
can  be  made  in  the  case.     The  first   and  third  of  these  are  so 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  57 

extremely  probable  that  millions  of  the  human  race  have  believed 
them  to  be  true.  Therefore  the  fourth  must  be  infallibly  cer- 
tain I  Weighed  in  the  balances  of  logical  propriety,  the  infalli- 
ble certainty  of  your  conclusion  turns  out  to  be  like  Berkely's 
"  vanishing  ghosts  of  departed  quantities." 


LETTER    IV. 

It  is  just  as  easy  to  prove  the  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  Infallibility  of  any  Church. 

We  owe  it  to  the  goodness  of  God  that  the  most  corrupt  and 
dangerous  principles  are  not  unfrequently  combined  in  the  same 
person  with  a  confusion  of  understanding  which  effectually  de- 
stroys their  capacity  of  mischief,  and  renders  the  triumph  of  truth 
more  illustrious  and  complete.  Error,  in  fact,  is  so  multiform 
and  various,  so  heterogeneous  in  its  parts,  and  mutually  repulsive 
in  its  elements,  that  it  requires  a  mind  of  extraordinary  power 
to  construct  a  fabric  of  such  discordant  materials  that  has  even 
the  appearance  of  regularity  and  order.  Truth,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  simple  and  uniform.  Her  body,  like  that  of  the  beau- 
tiful Osiris,  is  composed  of  homogeneous  and  well-adjusted  parts; 
and  as,  in  the  progress  of  discovery,  or  the  light  of  patient  inves- 
tigation, limb  is  added  to  limb,  and  member  to  member,  the  mind 
perceives  in  the  harmony  of  the  proportions,  and  the  exquisite 
symmetry  of  the  form,  a  mysterious  charmwhich,  like  the  magic 
of  musical  enchantment,  chains  its  sympathies,  and  captivates 
its  powers.  The  fascinations  of  falsehood  are  essentially  distin- 
guished from  the  "divine,  enchanting  ravishment"  of  truth,  by 
their  peculiar  effects  upon  the  health  and  vigor  of  the  soul. 
Whatever  pleasure  they  administer  is  like  the  profound  slumber 
produced  by  powerful  drugs  or  stupifying  potions,  in  which  the 
joys  that  are  experienced  are  the  unnatural  results  of  a  temporary 
delirium  ;  or,  as  Milton  expresses  it,  of  that  "  sweet  madness  "  in 
which  the  soul  is  robbed  of  its  energies,  and  rendered  impotent 
for  future  exertion  ;  but  ''the  sober  certainty  of  waking  bliss — a 

4 


58  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

sacred  and  homefelt  delight " — a  manly  and  solid  satisfaction, 
which  at  once  refreshes  and  invigorates  the  mind,  belongs  exclu- 
sively to  the  province  of  truth  Hence  philosophy,  which  is  only 
another  name  for  the  love  of  truth,  was  warmly  commended 
among  the  ancient  sages,  as  the  health  and  medicine  of  the  soul ; 
the  choicest  gift  of  heaven,  and  the  richest  jewel  of  earth.  False- 
hood, however  it  may  exhilarate,  always  confounds ;  and  the 
stimulus,  however  powerful,  which  it  may  impart  to  the  faculties 
of  the  mind,  can  produce  nothing  more  substantial  or  real,  than 
the  vain  phantoms  of  a  sick  man's  dream.  Hence  defences  of 
error  are  almost  always  inconsistent  with  themselves,  and  the 
advocate  of  truth  has  often  no  harder  task  than  to  place  the  dif- 
ferent statements  of  the  sophist  or  deceiver  in  immediate  juxta- 
position, and  leave  them,  in  their  war  of  contradictions,  to  demol- 
ish the  system  which  their  master  had  laboriously  toiled  to  erect. 
The  most  finished  productions  of  superstition,  infidelity,  and 
atheism,  when  resolved  into  their  constituent  parts,  are  found  to 
be  wanting  in  that  beautiful  consistency  which  springs  from  the 
bosom  of  God,  and  which  is  written,  as  if  by  the  finger  of  Hea- 
ven, upon  every  system  of  truth. 

Without  intending  to  degrade  your  understanding,  you  must 
permit  me  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  different 
portions  of  your  own  composition  are  "  like  two  prevaricating 
witnesses,  who  flatly  contradict  each  other,  though  neither  of  them 
speaks  the  truth."  In  your  zeal  to  demolish  the  foundations  of 
faith,  you  were  permitted,  in  the  righteous  providence  of  God, 
to  become  involved  in  a  maze  of  contradictions,  which  can  have 
no  other  effect  than  to  draw  down  upon  you  the  pity  and  con- 
tempt of  your  readers.  This  confusion  of  ideas,  is  not  perhaps 
to  be  attributed  so  much  to  native  imbecility  of  mind,  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  cause  which,  with  more  zeal  than  prudence,  you 
undertook  to  defend.  Consistency  cannot  be  expected  from  the 
advocates  of  a  black  and  bloody  superstition,  which  sprang  from 
the  father  of  lies,  whose  appropriate  element  is  darkness,  and 
whose  legitimate  effect  upon  the  life,  is  to  form  a  character 
homogeneous  in  nothing  but  implacable  enmity  to  God.  We  are 
not  to  be  astonished,  therefore,  to  find  that  your  elaborate  de- 
fence of  the  infallibility  of  a  body,  which   solemnly  sanctioned 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  Oil 

one  of  the  most  deliberate  and  atrocious  frauds*  that  ever  dis- 
graced the  annals  of  mankind,  should  be  so  ill-conceived  and  so 
awkwardly  adjusted  in  its  parts,  as  to  resemble  nothing  more 
distinctly  than  the  monstrous  picture  with  which  Horace  opens 
his  epistle  to  the  Pisos.  They  who  receive  not  the  truth  in  the 
love  of  it,  are  smitten  with  such  madness,  blindness  and  aston- 
ishment of  heart,  as  to  grope  at  noonday,  even  as  the  blind  grop- 
eth  in  darkness,  and  to  feel  for  the  wall  in  the  full  blaze  of  the 
meridian  sun.  The  blandishments  of  error,  like  the  subtle 
allurements  of  Samson's  wife,  may  rob  the  noblest  genius  of  its 
strength,  and  leave  it  in  the  midst  of  its  enemies,  dark,  dark, 
irrecoverably  dark.  I  am  far  from  contemplating  such  instances 
of  mental  eclipse  with  feelings  of  exultation  or  delight.  There 
cannot  be  a  more  appalling  spectacle  in  nature,  than  a  mind  in 
ruins :  and  in  the  righteous  severity  of  God,  which  visits  the 

*  "  When  John  Huss,  the  Bohemian  Reformer,  was  arrested,  cast  into 
prison,  and  publicly  burnt  alive  at  Constance,  in  spite  of  a  safe-conduct  given 
him  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund,  merely  because  he  refused  to  belie  his 
conscience  by  abjuring  his  pretended  heresy,  all  was  executed  under  the  eyes, 
and  by  the  express  authority,  of  the  Council,  who  solemnly  decreed  that  the 
safe-conduct  of  the  Emperor  ought  to  be  considered  as  no  impediment  to  the 
exercise  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  but  that,  notwithstanding,  it  was  perfectly 
competent  for  the  ecclesiastical  judge  to  take  cognizance  of  his  errors  and  to 
punish  them  agreeably  to  the  dictates  of  justice,  although  he  presented  himself 
before  them  in  dependence  upon  that  protection,  but  for  which  he  would  have 
declined  appearing.  Nor  were  they  satisfied  with  this  impious  decision  alone. 
Because  murmurs  were  heard  on  account  of  the  violation  of  a  legal  protection, 
they  had  the  audacity  to  add,  that  since  the  said  .John  Huss  had,  by  impugning 
the  orthodox  faith,  forfeited  every  privilege,  and  since  no  promise  or  faith  was 
binding,  either  by  human  or  divine  right,  in  prejudice  of  the  Catholic  faith,  the 
said  Emperor  had  done  as  became  his  royal  majesty  in  violating  his  safe-con- 
duct, and  that  whoever,  of  any  rank  or  sect,  dares  to  impugn  the  justice  of  the 
holy  council,  or  of  his  majesty,  in  relation  to  their  proceedings  with  John  Huss, 
shall  be  punished  without  hope  of  pardon,  as  a  favorer  of  heretical  depravity, 
and  guilty  of  the  crime  of  high  treason." — Hall,  vol.  iv.  p.  245.  LEnfanVs 
Council  of  Constance. 

The  third  Council  of  Lateran,  Canon  XVI.,  decreed  that  all  oaths  contrary 
to  the  utility  of  the  Church  and  to  the  institutions  of  the  Fathers,  are  to  be 
regarded  as  perjuries,  and  therefore  not  to  be  kept.  "  Non  enim  dicenda  sunt 
juramenta,  sed  potius  pcrjuria,  quae  contra  utilitatem  ecclesiasticam  et  sanc- 
torum patrum  renitent  institufa." 


60  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

advocates  of  error  by  sealing  up  the  intellectual  eyeball  in  im- 
penetrable night,  we  may  learn  the  awful  majesty  of  truth,  and 
the  tremendous  danger  of  trifling  with  the  light.  This  disastrous 
judgment  is  the  portentous  herald  of  a  deeper  woe.  It  is,  there- 
fore, with  feelings  of  the  profoundest  pity,  and  with  the  most 
heartfelt  reciprocation  of  your  prayer  on  my  behalf,  that  I  am 
now  compelled  to  expose  that  tissue  of  inconsistencies,  contra- 
dictions, and  unwarrantable  assumptions,  which  constitutes  your 
second  argument ;  and  if,  sir,  you  shall  be  made  to  to  feel,  as  I 
sincerely  trust  that  you  may,  that  you  have  been  only  weaving  a 
tangled  web  of  sophistry  and  deceit,  you  should  take  a  salutary 
warning,  and  before  you  finally  stumble  on  the  dark  mountains, 
contemplate  the  severity  of  God  in  them  that  fall. 

Your  object  is  to  exhibit  the  historical  grounds  for  believing, 
that  God  has  in  fact  established,  through  Jesus  Christ,  a  com- 
missioned delegate  from  Heaven,  "  a  body  of  individuals,  to 
whom,  in  their  collective  capacity.  He  has  given  authority  to 
make   an   unerring  decision"    on    the   subject  of  jhe  Canon.* 

*  "  One  of  such  a  body  presenting  himself  to  instruct  a  Christian  or  an 
infidel  would  first  inform  him,  that  a  number  of  years  ago,  a  person  known  by 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  appeared  in  Judea,  and  established  a  new  religion. — 
Sufficient  motives  of  credibility  can  easily  be  brought  forward  to  induce  the 
novice  to  believe  this.  He  proceeds  to  state  that  Christ  proved  his  heavenly 
commission  to  do  so,  by  frequent,  public,  and  manifest  miracles.  It  will  not 
require  much  to  establish  in  those  works  certain  striking  characteristics,  of 
themselves  clearly  indicative  of  a  miraculous  nature.  Hence,  common  sense 
is  forced  to  conclude  that  the  religion  established  by  Christ  was  Divine, 
springing  from  God,  and  binding  on  man.  So  far,  we  find  nothing  above  or 
contrary  to  the  means  and  understanding  even  of  an  Indian  or  negro.  Our 
instructor  then  states,  that  Christ,  in  order  to  secure  the  extension  of  His  reli- 
gion to  every  people,  and  its  perpetuation  to  the  end  of  time,  selected  from 
among  His  followers  certain  persons,  who,  with  their  successors,  were,  in  His 
name,  and  by  the  same  authority  as  He  possessed,  to  go  forth  and  teach  all  na- 
tions all  that  He  had  Himself  taught  in  Judea.  (Matt,  xxviii.  19,  20.)  Such  a 
delegation  is  by  no  means  unnatural  or  strange,  and  there  could  be  found  no 
novice,  however  rude  and  uncultivated,  whose  mind  could  not  grasp  it,  and 
who  would  not  be  led  to  believe  it,  on  sufficiently  credible  testimony. 

"  The  next  lesson  will  be,  that  the  Saviour  assured  them  that  they  would 
be  opposed,  that  others  would  rise  up  to  teach  errors,  whom  He  sent  not,  and 
that  some  of  their  own  number  would  fall  away  ;  but  that  God  would  recall 
to  their  minds   all  things  He  had  taught  them  (.Tno.  xiv.  26)  ;  that  He  would 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  61 

These  historical  proofs,  you  inform  us,  contain  nothing  that 
transcends  the  means,  or  surpasses  the  understanding,  even  of  an 
Indian  or  a  negro.  Now,  what  are  these  historical  proofs,  and 
whence  are  they  derived  ?  The  recorded  facts  of  the  New 
Testament,  received  on  the  authority  of  the  Apostles  and  Evan- 
gelists! You  appeal  to  "certain  histories  written  by  persons 
who  lived  at  the  same  time  with  the  Saviour,  and  were  for  years 
in  daily  and  intimate  intercourse  with  him,  and  the  accuracy  of 
whose  reports  is  universally  acknowledged,  and  can  be  easily 
substantiated."  In  other  words,  the  genuineness  and  authen- 
ticity of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  are  matters  so  simple 
and  plain,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  evidence  "  above  or  con- 
trary to  the  means  and  understanding  of  an  Indian  or  a  negro." 


send  them  the  Spirit  of  truth,  who  should  abide  with  them  for  ever  (Jno.  xiv. 
16,  17),  and  should  teach  them  all  truth  (Jno.  xiv.  26  ;  xvi.  13)  ;  that  He 
himself  would  be  with  them  while  fulfilling  that  commission,  all  days,  even  to 
the  consummatioa  of  the  world  (Matt,  xxviii;  20),  and  that  the  gates  of  hell 
— the  fiercest  conflicts  of  enemies — -should  never  prevail  against  that  Church 
(Matt.  xvi.  18),  which  He  had  sent  them  to  found,  and  ever  to  instruct.  For 
stronger  and  more  explicit  evidence  of  this,  he  might,  if  necessary  and  con- 
venient, recur  to  certain  histories,  written  by  persons  who  lived  at  the  same 
time  with  the  Saviour,  and  were  for  years  in  daily  and  intimate  intercourse  with 
Him,  who  could  not  mistake  such  simple  points,  and  the  accuracy  of  whose 
reports  is  universally  acknowledged,  and  can  be  easily  substantiated.  '  All 
this,'  replies  the  novice,  '  my  own  common  sense  would  lead  me  to  expect. 
The  persecutions  and  errors  you  refer  to,  are  but  the  natural  workings  of  the 
passions  of  men,  such  as  experience  shows  them  in  every  day  life.  It  would 
be  strange,  indeed,  that  while  men  change  and  contradict  every  thing  else, 
they  should  not  seek  to  change  and  contradict  God's  doctrines  and  precepts 
too.  If  He  willed  that  the  Religion  of  Christ,  that  is,  that  the  doctrines  He 
revealed,  should  be  ever  preached  and  believed  ;  the  precepts  He  gave,  ever 
announced  and  obeyed  ;  it  was  necessary  to  make  some  adequate  provision 
against  this  error,  and  change-seeking  tendency  of  man.  If  those  doctrines 
and  precepts  are  to  be  learned  from  persons  He  appointed  to  teach  in  His  name 
and  by  His  authority,  as  delegates  whom,  in  virtue  of  the  power  given  Him, 
He  sent,  as  He  was  sent  by  the  Father,  that  provision  must  evidently  and  ne- 
cessarily be  directed  to  preserve  the  purity  of  their  teaching — to  preserve  that 
body  of  teachers,  by  the  power  of  God,  from  error,  and  to  make  them,  in  fact, 
teach  all  things  whatsoever  He  had  taught  them.  Unaided  reason  almost 
assures  me  this  is  the  course  the  Saviour  would  adopt.  The  evidence  you 
lay  before  me  is  satisfactory  and  worthy  of  credit — I  assent.'  " — Letter  I. 


6^  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

These  books  contain  satisfactory  proof  of  the  miracles  of  Christ 
— these  miracles  establish  His  divine  commission,  and  conse- 
quently, impart  divine  authority  to  whatever  he  enjoined,  and  as 
a  body  of  infallible  teachers,  to  be  perpetuated  to  the  end  of  time, 
was  His  provision  for  preserving  His  truth  pure  in  the  world, 
that  arrangement  unquestionably  possessed  the  sanction  of  God. 
Such  is  your  argument.  Now,  sir,  if  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  are  to  be  received  as  credible  testimony  to  the  mira- 
cles of  Christ,  why  not  on  the  subject  of  their  own  inspiration  1 
Are  you  not  aware,  that  the  great  historical  "  argument  on  which 
Protestants  rely,  in  proving  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures, 
presupposes  only  the  genuineness  of  the  books,  and  the  credi- 
bilitj/"  of  their  authors?  You  have,  yourself,  admitted  that 
tho  teaching  of  the  Apostles  was  super  naturally  protected  from 
error  ;  and  if  their  oral  instructions  were  dictated  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  why  should  that  august  and  glorious  visitant  desert  them 
when  they  took  the  pen  to  accomplish  the  same  object,  when  ab- 
sent, which,  when  present,  they  accomplished  by  the  tongue  1* 
They,  themselves,  declare  that  their  writings  possessed  the  same 
authority  with  their  oral  instructions.  Petert  ranks  the  Epistles 
of  Paul  with  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  were 
confessed  to  be  inspired  ;  and  Paul  exhorts  the  Thessalonians  to 
hold  fast  the  traditions  which  they  had  received  from  him,  either 
by  word  or  epistle.X  If,  then,  the  credibility  of  these  books  is 
a  matter  so  plain  and  palpable,  and  can  be  so  "  easily  substan- 

*  "  We  have  seen  how  fully  gifted  the  Apostles  were  for  the  business  of 
their  mission.  They  worked  miracles,  they  spake  with  tongues,  they  explained 
mysteries,  they  interpreted  prophecies,  they  discerned  the  true  from  the  false 
pretences  to  the  Spirit ;  and  all  this  for  the  temporary  and  occasional  discharge 
of  their  ministry.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to  suppose  them  to  be  deserted  by  their 
Divine  Enlightener  when  they  sat  down  to  the  other  part  of  their  work,  to 
frame  a  rule  for  the  lasting  service  of  the  Church  ?  Can  we  believe  that  that 
Spirit,  which  so  bountifully  assisted  them  in  their  assemblies,  had  withdrawn 
himself  when  they  retired  to  their  private -oratories  :  or  that  when  their  speech 
was  with  all  power,  their  writings  should  convey  no  more  than  the  weak  and 
fallible  dictates  of  human  knowledge  1  To  suppose  the  endowments  of  the 
Spirit  to  be  so  capriciously  bestowed,  would  make  it  look  more  like  a  mockery 
than  a  gift." — Warburton,  Doct.  of  Grace,  book  i.  chap.  5. 

t  2  Pet.  iii.  15, 16.  \  2  Thess.  ii.  15. 


^  APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  63 

tiafed,"  and  such  is  your  concession,  what  need  of  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Latin,  Syriac,  Chaldee,  and  divers  modern  tongues,  to- 
gether with  Geology,  Chemistry,  Natural  History,  and  almost 
every  science,  to  make  out  their  inspiration  ?  They  assert  it, 
and  they  are  to  he  believed;  therefore  one  would  think  they 
might  be  believed  by  a  simple,  unlettered  man,  without  being 
master  of  a  library  of  which  Charleston,  and  perhaps  Columbia, 
is  too  poor  to  boast !  I  had  always  thought  that  the  only  diffi- 
culty in  making  out  the  external  proof  of  inspiration,  was  in 
establishing  the  credibility  of  the  books  which  profess  to  be  in- 
spired. It  had  struck  me  that  if  it  were  once  settled,  that  their 
own  testimony  was  to  be  received,  the  matter  was  at  an  end. 
But  it  seems  now,  that  the  credibility  of  a  witness  is  no  proof 
that  he  speaks  the  truth,  and  though  "the  accuracy  of  his  state- 
ments can  be  easily  substantiated,  even  to  the  mind  of  an  Indian 
or  a  negro,"  there  is  one  fact,  about  which  he  cannot  be  be- 
lieved, except  by  a  man  who  carries  all  the  learning  of  Europe 
and  America  in  his  head.  Nay,  with  all  the  advantages  of  a 
''  larger  library  than  Charleston  can  boast  of;"  with  the  tongues 
alike  of  the  dead  and  living ;  with  universal  science  pour- 
ing her  treasures  in  boundless  profusion  at  his  feet;  with  an 
almost  **  supernatural  accuracy  of  judgment,"  added  to  their 
other  marvellous  accomplishments,  it  is  still  doubtful  whether,  in 
the  way  of  private  judgment,  a  man  could  ever  be  assured  that 
credible  books  were  to  be  believed  on  the  subject  of  their  origin.* 
But  just  let  one  of  an  infallible  body  present  himself  before  a 
Christian  or  an  infidel — an  Indian  or  negro,  and  how  changed 
the  scene !  As  if  at  the  waving  of  a  wizard's  wand,  the  mists 
are  dispelled,  the  shadows  disappear,  a  flood  of  light  removes  all 
lingering  doubt,  and  an  infant  mind  can  surmount  those  giant 
difficulties  which  '' veteran  scholars"  and  "  sage  philosophers" 
were  unable  to  subdue.  This  teacher  can  achieve  these  mighty 
wonders  before  it  is  proved  that  he  belongs  to  an  unerring  band — 
there  is  magic  in  his  voice.     Just  let  him  ope  his  ponderous  lips 

*  "  Whether  any  investigation  in  either  or  both  classes  (that  is,  of  external 
and  internal  evidence)  carried  on  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
will  unerringly  prove  the  inspiration  of  any  books  of  the  Scripture,  I  leave  to 
be  mooted  bv  those  who  choose  to  undertake  the  task." — Letter  I. 


64  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  give  the  word,  and  the  sun  of  the  Scriptures  no  longer 
"looks  through  the  horizontal  misty  air,  shorn  of  his  beams;  no 
longer  stands  in  awful  eclipse  scattering  disastrous  twilight 
over  half  the  nations,"  but  shines  out  in  the  full  effulgence  of 
meridian  day. 

It  is  strange  to  me,  that  you  did  not  perceive  the  egregious 
ahsiirdity  of  attempting  to  establish  the  infallihle  authority  of  a 
body  of  individuals  upon  historical  grounds,  when  you  denied  the 
possibility  of  proving  the  infallible  authority  of  the  Scriptures 
by  the  same  process. 

The  evidence  in  both  cases  is  precisely  of  the  same  nature. 
The  inspiration  of  Rome  turns  upon  a  promise  which  is  said  to 
have  been  made  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago — the  inspiration 
of  the  New  Testament  turns  upon  facts  which  are  said  to  have 
transpired  at  the  same  time.  Both  the  promises  and  the  facts  are 
to  be  found,  if  found  at  all,  in  this  very  New  Testament.  Now, 
how  does  it  happen,  that  when  the  point  to  be  proved,  is  the  pre- 
tended promise  made  to  the  pastors  of  Rome,  the  New  Testa- 
ment becomes  amazingly  accurate,  and  the  proofs  of  its  credibil- 
ity are  neither  above  nor  contrary  to  the  means  or  understand- 
ing of  an  Indian  or  a  negro?  But,  when  the  point  to  be  proved 
is  the  facts  which  establish  the  inspiration  of  the  writers,  then 
the  New  Testament  becomes  involved  in  a  cloud  of  uncertainty, 
which  no  human  learning  is  able  to  remove.  Your  argument, 
sir,  has  certainly  placed  you  in  a  sad  dilemma.  You  cannot 
make  out  the  historical  proofs  of  Papal  infallibility,  without  mak- 
ing out  at  the  same  time  the  historical  proofs  of  Scriptural  in- 
spiration. Both  must  be  traced  through  the  same  channels  to 
the  age  of  the  Apostles. 

Now,  sir,  one  of  two  things  must  be  true ;  either  the  credi- 
bility of  the  Scriptures  can  be  substantiated  to  a  plain  unlettered 
man,  or  it  cannot.  If  it  can  be,  then  there  is  no  need  of  your 
infallible  body  to  authenticate  their  inspiration,  since  that  mat- 
ter can  be  easily  gathered  from  their  own  pages.  If  it  cannot, 
then  your  argument  from  the  Scriptures,  to  an  Indian  or  a  negro, 
in  favor  of  an  infallible  body,  is  inadmissible,  since  he  is  incapa- 
ble of  apprehending  the  premises  from  which  your  conclusion  is 
drawn.     You  have  taken  both  horns  of  this  dilemma,  pushing 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  65 

Protestants  with  one,  and  upholding  Popery  with  the  other,  and 
both  ^re  fatal  to  you.  Now,  as  it  is  rather  difficult  to  be  on  both 
sides  of  the  same  question  at  the  same  time,  you  must  adhere 
to  one  or  the  other.  If  you  adhere  to  your  first  position,  that  all 
human  learning  is  necessary  to  settle  the  credibility  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, then  you  must  seek  other  proofs  of  an  infallible  body  than 
those  which  you  think  you  have  gathered. from  the  Apostles.  You 
must  first  establish  the  infallibility  of  the  body  that  claims  to 
teach  us,  and  then  receive  the  Sacred  Oracles  at  their  hand.  A 
circulating  syllogism  proves  nothing,  and  if  he  who  establishes 
the  credibility  of  the  Scriptures  by  an  infallible  body,  and  then  es- 
tablishes the  infallibility  of  the  body  from  the  credibility  of  the 
Scriptures,  does  not  reason  in  a  circle,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  apprehend 
the  nature  of  that  sophism.  If  you  adhere  to  your  other  position, 
that  the  accuracy  of  the  Evangelists  can  be  easily  substantiated, 
then  your  objections  to  private  judgment  arefairlt/  given  up,  and 
you  surrender  the  point,  that  a  man  can  decide  for  himself  with  ab- 
solute certainty,  concerning  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  Take 
which  horn  you  please,  your  cause  is  ruined  :  and  as  you  have  suc- 
cessively chosen  both,  you  have  made  yourself  as  ridiculous  as 
your  reasoning  is  contemptible. 

The  process  by  which  you  endeavor  to  elicit  an  infallible 
body  of  teachers  from  the  Scriptures,  is  in  perfect  keeping  with 
the  rest  of  your  argument.  You  do  not  pretend  that  they  con- 
tain any  express  testimony  to  the  fact;  neither  do  you  deduce 
from  them  any  marks  by  which  your  unerring  guides  of  faith  can 
be  discriminated  from  those  who  introduce  errors  and  attempt  to 
change  the  religion  of  Christ. — How  then  does  it  appear  that 
such  infallible  instructors  were  appointed?  Why,  there  is  no 
other  way  in  which  God  could  accomplish  His  purpose  of  trans- 
mitting Christianity  pure  and  uncorrupted  to  the  remotest  gen- 
erations of  men.  This  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  argu- 
ment, for  the  sake  of  which  you  have  made  yourself  so  consum- 
mately ridiculous,  by  contradicting  your  previous  statements  in 
regard  to  the  credibility  of  the  Scriptures!  "Some  adequate 
provision  must  be  made  against  the  error  and  change-seeking  ten- 
dency of  man,"  and  as  Christianity  is  appointed  to  be  learned  from 
persons  delegated  to  teach  in  the  name  and  by  the   authority  of 

4* 


66  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Christ, ''  that  provision  must  evidently  and  necessarily  be  directed 
to  preserve  that  body  of  teachers,  by  the  povi^er  of  God,  from 
error,  and  to  make  them,  in  fact,  teach  all  things  whatsoever  He 
had  taught  them." 

That  an  infallible  body  of  teachers  presents  the  only  effectual 
means  of  perpetuating  the  religion  of  Christ,  unadulterated  with 
error,  is  so  exceedingly  unlikely,  that  it  would  require  nothing 
less  than  a  constant  miracle  to  preserve  a  system  transmitted  in 
this  way  from  corruptions,  additions,  and  radical  changes.  Unless 
each  individual  pastor  were  himself  infallible,  fatal  errors  might 
be  widely  disseminated  before  the  body  could  be  collected  to- 
gether to  separate  the  chaff  from  the  wheat,  and  to  distinguish 
the  precious  from  the  vile.  Three  centuries  have  hardly  passed 
away  since  the  last  General  Council  of  the  Roman  Church  was  first 
convened.  In  that  lapse  of  time,  how  many  unauthorized  opin- 
ions may  have  gained  currency  among  the  pastors  of  your  Church, 
and  have  perverted  your  flocks  from  the  true  doctrines  of  Rome? 
The  truth  is,  without  a  perpetual  superintendence  over  the  mind 
and  heart  of  every  solitary  teacher,  amounting  to  a  miraculous 
protection  from  error,  the  plan  of  transmitting  a  system  of  reli- 
gion by  oral  tradition,  is  the  most  unsafe,  uncertain,  and  liable 
to  abuse,  of  any  that  could  be  adopted.  The  commonest  story 
cannot  pass  through  a  single  community  without  gathering  addi- 
tion as  it  goes.  How  then  shall  a  complicated  system  of  religion 
be  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation — passed  on  from  lip 
to  lip,  and  from  age  to  age,  and  lose  nothing  of  its  original  integ- 
rity, and  gain  nothing  from  the  invention  of  man?  Sir,  your 
'*  common  sense,"  and  "  the  common  sense  of  an  Indian  or 
negro,"  might  lead  you  ''to  expect  that  this  is  the  course  which 
the  Saviour  would  adopt,"  but  nothing  but  His  own  word  can 
render  it  credible  to  me.  No,  sir,  God  has  taken  a  different 
method  to  guard  against  the  "  error  and  change-seeking  tenden- 
cies of  men."  He  has  committed  His  holy  religion  to  written 
documents,  which  are  to  abide  as  an  infallible  standard  of  faith, 
till  the  heavens  and  the  earth  are  no  more.  There,  and  there 
alone,  are  we  to  seek  the  truth.  By  them,  and  them  alone,  all 
the  spirits  are  to  be  tried — all  the  teachers  are  to  be  judged — and 
if  Roman  pastors,  with  their  wicked  pretensions  to   infallible 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  67 

authority,  speak  not  according  to  these  records,  they  are  to  be 
cast  out  as  lying  prophets  whom  the  Lord  hath  not  sent. 

You  have  totally  misconceived  the  appropriate  functions  of 
the  Christian  Ministry.  Sir,  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel  were 
never  designed  to  be  the  lords  of  the  people's  faith,  but  helpers 
of  their  joy.  They  are  io  propose,  but  it  belongs  to  the  Scriptures 
alone  to  confirm  or  prove  the  doctrines  of  religion.  The  infalli- 
ble standard  is  in  the  Bible,  and  they  who  are  noble,  will,  like 
Bereans,  test  the  instructions  of  their  pastors  by  the  true  and 
faithful  sayings  of  God. 

You  must  remember,  sir,  that  the  Scriptures,  which  you 
have  admitted  to  be  credible,  which  were  written  by  men  under 
a  special  promise  of  Christ  to  be  protected  from  error  and  in- 
structed in  the  truth,  profess  to  be  a  perfect  rule  oi  faith  and 
practice.  ''Their  accuracy  can  be  easily  substantiated,"  even 
to  the  most  illiterate  understanding.  Why,  then,  should  there  be 
an  infallible  stream  of  tradition,  kept  up  by  a  constant  miracle, 
running  parallel  with  the  infallible  stream  of  Scripture,  which 
can  be,  and  has  been  preserved  pure  by  the  ordinary  providence 
of  God  ?  Is  a  large  variety  of  means  for  the  accomplishment 
of  any  effect,  when  a  few  are  abundantly  adequate,  characteris- 
tic of  the  works  of  God?  Is  it  His  ordinary  course  to  multiply 
agents  when  a  single  cause  is  sufficient  for  His  purpose  '?  Your 
assumption,  then,  that  a  body  of  infallible  teachers  is  necessary 
to  preserve  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  in  their  original  purity, 
is  wholly  groundless,  and  your  argument,  consequently,  may  be 
given  to  the  winds.     The  Bible  shows  us  a  more  excellent  way. 

You  have  indirectly  insisted  upon  the  promises  of  Christ, 
that  He  would  send  the  Spirit  to  guide  His  disciples  into  all 
truth,  and  be  with  them  to  assist  and  bless  them  in  preaching 
His  Gospel  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  But,  sir,  these  promises  do 
not  serve  your  purpose.  The  first  was  fulfilled  in  each  of  the 
Apostles,  and  if  it  is  to  be  applied  in  a  similar  form  to  all  their 
successors,  it  would  prove  the  full  inspiration  of  every  lawful 
minister  of  God.  This  is  more  than  you  are  willing  to  admit. 
You  have  already  told  us  that  no  single  individual  is  to  be  re- 
ceived as  an  infallible  teacher,  but  that  the  authority  to  make  an 
unerring  decision  belongs  exclusively  "  to  a  body  of  individuals 


68  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

in  their  collective  capacity."  Our  Saviour  said  nothing  of  such 
a  body  ;  His  promise  in  reference  to  the  Apostles  was  evidently 
personal,  and  applied  to  them  in  the  official  relations  which  each 
sustained  as  a  steward  of  the  mysteries  of  God.  How,  then, 
was  the  promise  accomplished  to  succeeding  ages?  By  leading 
the  Apostles,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  record 
the  infallible  instructions  of  Christ,  which  should  be  a  perpetual 
rule  of  faith,  containing  all  things  important  for  man  to  know 
or  for  man  to  do.  *     These  venerable  men  live  in  their  books  : 

*  See  this  subject  ably  and  satisfactorily  discussed  in  Warburton's  Doctrine 
of  Grace,  pt.  i.,  and  Bishop  Heber's  Bampton  Lectures.  The  reader  will  ex- 
cuse the  following  extract  from  the  7th  of  Heber's  Lectures : 

"  It  appears,  then,  that  the  advent  of  the  Paraclete,  and  his  abode  among 
men,  would  be,  during  any  period  of  Christian  History,  sufficiently  evinced  by 
the  existence  of  one  or  more  inspired  individuals,  whose  authority  should  gov- 
ern, whose  lights  should  guide,  whose  promises  should  console  their  less  distin- 
guished brethren  ;  and  by  whom,  and  in  whom,  as  the  agents  and  organs  of  His 
will,  the  Holy  Ghost  should  be  recognized  as  Sovereign  of  the  Church  Univer- 
sal. But  if  this  be  conceded,  it  will  signify  but  very  little,  or  (to  speak  more 
boldly,  perhaps,  but  not  less  accurately)  it  will  be  a  circumstance  altogether  in- 
significant, whether  the  instruction  afforded  be  oral  or  epistolary  ;  whether  the 
government  be  carried  on  by  the  authority  of  a  present  lawgiver,  or  through 
the  medium  of  rescripts  bearing  his  seal,  and,  no  less  than  his  personal  man- 
dates, compulsory  on  the  obedience  of  the  faithful.  In  eveiy  government, 
whether  human  or  divine,  the  amanuensis  of  a  sovereign  is  an  agent  of  his 
will,  no  less  ordinary  and  effectual  than  his  herald :  and  St.  Paul  both  might 
and  did  lay  claim  to  an  equal  deference  when,  in  the  name  and  on  the  behalf  of 
that  Spirit  by  whom  he  was  actuated,  he  censured  by  his  letters  the  incestuous 
Corinthian,  as  if  he  had,  when  present  and  by  word  of  mouth,  pronounced  the 
ecclesiastical  sentence.  It  follows  that  the  Holy  Ghost  as  accurately  fulfilled 
the  engagement  of  Christ,  as  the  Patron  and  Governor  of  Christians,  by  the 
writings  of  the  inspired  person  when  absent,  as  by  his  actual  presence  and 
preaching.  And  if  St.  Paul,  having  once  by  divine  authority,  set  in  order  the 
Asiatic  and  Grecian  Churches,  had  departed  for  Spain,  or  Britain,  or  some  other 
country,  at  so  great  a  distance  as  to  render  all  subsequent  communication  im- 
possible ;  yet  still,  so  long  as  the  instructions  left  behind  sufficed  for  the  wants 
and  interests  of  the  community,  that  community  would  not  have  ceased  to  be 
guided  and  governed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  through  the  writings  of  his  chosen  ser- 
vant. But  that  authority  wliich  we  allow  to  the  writings  of  an  absent  Apostle, 
we  cannot,  without  offending  against  every  analogy  of  reason  and  custom,  deny 
to  those  which  a  deceased  Apostle  has  left  behind  him.  For  the  authority  of 
such  vmtings,  I  need  hardly  observe,  is  of  an  official,  not  of  a  personal  nature. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  69 

"  for  books  are  not  absolutely  dead  things,  but  do  contain  a  pro- 
geny of  life  in  them  to  be  as  active  as  that  soul  whose  progeny 
they  are ;  nay,  they  do  preserve,  as  in  a  vial,  the  purest  efficacy 
and  extraction  of  that  living  intellect  that  bred  them.  A  good 
book  is  the  precious  lifeblood  of  a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and 
treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life."  It  is  in  the  re- 
cords which  they  left  that  we  now  find  the  spirit  of  inspiration  ; 
there  is  his  abode,  there  the  place  of  his  supreme  illumination, 
and  in  these  books,  consequently,  Christianity  must  be  sought  in 
its  purity  and  vigor. 

The  other  promise  pledges  the  assistance  of  Christ  to  those 
who  preach  the  truth.  It  is  a  standing  encouragement  to  all 
ministers  that,  in  faithfully  dispensing  the  word  of  God  according 
to  the  law  and  the  testimony,  their  labor  should  not  be  in  vain 
in  the  Lord.  Our  Saviour  had  previously  given  a  command,  to 
go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature. 
The  prospect  of  success  in  the  fulfilment  of  this  solemn  injunc- 
tion, from  the  condition  of  society,  the  prejudices  of  the  Jews, 
the  philosophy   of  the  Greeks,  and  the  superstition  of  the  Ro- 

It  does  not  consist  in  their  having  emanated  from  Peter  or  James  or  John,  ab- 
stractly considered,  (in  which  case,  the  authority  of  any  one  of  them  might, 
undoubtedly,  terminate  with  his  life,)  but  their  authority  is  founded  in  that  faith 
which  receives  these  persons  as  accredited  agents  of  the  Almighty.  We  rever- 
ence their  communications  as  the  latest  edicts  of  the  Paraclete  ;  and  we  believe 
all  further  communications  to  have  ceased  for  a  time  ;  not  because  those  emi- 
nent servants  of  God  have  long  since  gone  to  their  reward,  for  it  were  as  easy 
for  the  Holy  Spirit  to  raise  up  other  prophets  in  their  room  as  it  was  originally 
to  qualify  them  for  that  high  office — not  because  we  apprehend  that  the  good 
Spirit  is  become  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  the  Church,  for  this  would  be  in 
utter  contradiction  to  the  gracious  assurance  of  our  Saviour  ;  but  because  suffi- 
cient light  has  been  already  afforded  for  the  government  of  our  hopes  and  tem- 
pers ;  and  because  no  subsequent  question  has  occurred  for  which  the  Scriptures 
already  given  had  not  already  and  sufficiently  provided.  *  *  *  * 

"  We  conclude,  then,  as  Warburton  has  long  since  concluded,  (though  he 
arrived  at  the  same  truth  by  a  process  somewhat  different,  and  incumbered  its 
definition  by  circumstances  which  I  have  shown  to  be  irrelevant,)  we  conclude 
that  it  is  by  the  revelation  of  the  Christian  covenant  and  by  the  preservation  of 
the  knowledge  thus  communicated  to  the  ancient  Church,  in  the  Scriptures  of 
the  New  Testament,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  manifested  and^continues,Us  the 
vicar  and  successor  of  Christ,  to  manifest  his  protecting  care  of  Christianity." 


70  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

mans,  was  far  from  encouraging.  To  support  their  faith  and 
quicken  their  hopes,  their  ascending  Saviour  pledged  His  al- 
mighty power  to  make  His  truth  effectual,  in  bringing  down  lofty 
imaginations,  and  subduing  the  hearts  of  men  in  captivity  to  His 
cross.  The  promise  in  that  passage  is  not  that  they  should  speak 
the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  but  that  in  speaking  the 
truth,  in  preaching  whatever  He  had  commanded.  He  would  be 
with  them  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world  ;  and  this  prom- 
ise has  never  failed. 

Your  letter  contains  a  few  incidental  statements,  introduced 
in  the  way  of  cumulative  testimony,  to  confirm  the  pretensions 
of  your  infallible  body.  You  tell  us  first,  that  it  can  trace  its 
predecessors  in  an  unbroken  line  up  to  the  age  of  the  Apostles 
themselves.  So  far  is  this  from  being  the  truth,  that  not  a  single 
priest  in  your  Church  can  have  any  absolute  certainty  that  he 
is  a  priest  at  all,  unless  he  be  invested  with  the  prerogative  of 
God  to  search  the  hearts  and  try  the  reins  of  the  children  of 
men.  Intention,  on  your  principles,  is  an  essential  element  of 
a  valid  ordination  !  How  can  a  priest  be  assured  that  his  Bishop 
intended  to  ordain  him,  or  how  can  the  Bishop  be  assured  that 
he  himself  was  lawfully  consecrated?  The  whole  matter  is 
involved  in  confusion,  and  you  cannot  know  whether  you  are 
pastors  at  all,  or  not. 

Again,  you  inform  us  of  the  prodigious  numbers  that  have 
been  converted  by  the  labors  of  your  infallible  teachers.  Sir, 
the  world  loveth  its  own,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  hroad 
road  that  leads  to  death,  that  thousands  are  journeying  its 
downward  course.  Mahomet  laid  the  foundations  of  an  em- 
pire, which,  in  the  course  of  eighty  years,  extended  farther  than 
the  Eqman  arms,  for  eight  hundred  years,  had  been  able  to 
spread  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Csesars.  In  this  comparatively 
short  space  of  time,  there  were  brought  under  the  sway  of  the 
Crescent  the  Grecian,  Persian,  and  Mogul  States,  with  many 
others  of  inferior  importance;  and  yet  Mahometanism,  not- 
withstanding its  unparalleled  success,  was  a  gross  system  of 
imposture  and  fraud.  The  purity  of  a  system  is  not  to  be  de- 
termined by  the  multitudes  that  embrace  it.  How  significant  is 
the  question  of  our  Saviour:     When  the  Son  of  man  cometh 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  71 

shall  he  find  faith  on  the  earth  ?     Fear  not,  little  flock,  it  is  your 
Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom. 

Why  have   you  omitted   all  mention   of  the   meekness   and 
patience  that  have   always  been  characteristic  of  the  Church  of 
God  ?     Were  you  conscious,  sir,  that  you  had  no  claims  to  that 
discriminating   badge   of  the    faithful  1     Did   the  past  rise  up 
before  you  in  horrible  distinctness,  and   warn  you   to  forbear  ? 
Rome,  Papal   Rome,  which  professes  to  be   the  humble,  meek, 
patient,  suffering  Church  of  God,  is  literally  steeped  in  human 
gore.     Your  pastors  have   inflicted  more  sufferings  upon  men, 
have  shed  more  human  blood,  have  invented  a  greater  variety  of 
tortures,  have  more  deeply  revelled  in  human  misery  and  feasted 
on  human  groans,  than  all  the  tyrants,  bigots,  and  despots  of  all 
the   systems  of  superstition  and  oppression  that  have  ever  ap- 
peared  in   the  world,  from  the  fall  of  man  to  the  present  day. 
To  Papal  Rome  the  foul  pre-eminence  of  cruelty  must  unques- 
tionably be   awarded.     The  holy  ministers  of  the  Inquisition, 
under  the  sacred   name  of  religion,  have  tested  to  its  utmost 
limits  the   capacity  of  human  endurance  ;  every  bone,  muscle, 
sinew,  and  nerve  have  been  effectually  sounded,  and  the  precise 
point  ascertained  at  which  agony  is  no  longer  tolerable,  and  the 
convulsed   and  quivering  spirit  must   quit  its  tenement  of  clay. 
The  degree  of  refinement  and  perfection  to   which  the  art  of 
torment  has  been  carried   in   these  infernal   prisons   is  enough 
to  make  humanity  shudder,  and  religion  sicken,  and  nothing  but 
the  most  invincible  blindness  could  ever  confound  these  habita- 
tions of  cruelty,  these  dark  corners  of  the  earth,  with  the  means 
of  grace    and  the  elements  of  salvation.     How   preposterous, 
while  breathing  out  slaughter  and  cruelty,  exhibiting  more  the 
spirit  of  cannibals  than  the  temper  of  Christians,  to  claim  to  be 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church— the  chosen  depository  of  truth— the 
special  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ! 

Having,  as  you  suppose,  sufficiently  proved  that  an  infallible 
body  exists,  you  next  proceed  to  show  us  that  it  must  be  coin- 
posed  of  the  pastors  and  teachers  of  your  own  communion. 
This  part  of  your  argument  need  not  detain  me  long,  as  I  have 
clearly  refuted  your  proofs  of  the  existence  of  such  a  body.  Still 
if  it  did  exist,  the  mere  claim  of  Rome   would    not  establish 


72  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

her  pretensions  to  be  received  as  an  unerring  tribunal  of  faith. 
Theudas  and  Judas  each  claimed  to  be  the  promised  Messiah  of 
the  Jews.  Mahomet  claimed  to  be  a  true  prophet  of  God,  and 
the  Devil  himself  sometimes  claims  to  be  an  angel  of  light.  If 
an  arrogant  claim  is  sufficient  to  establish  a  right,  and  such  a 
right  is  founded  in  absolute  certainty,  how  long  would  the  dis- 
tinctions of  truth  and  falsehood,  of  virtue  and  vice,  be  preserved 
among  men  ? 

I  have  now,  sir,  sufficiently  reviewed  your  pretended  proofs 
of  the  infallibility  of  Rome  as  a  witness  for  the  truth,  and  have 
shown  them  to  be  alike  ridiculous  and  vain.  You  have  given 
us  the  true  value  of  your  argument,  in  saying  that  it  would  con- 
vince an  infant  mind.  It  may  be  adapted  to  children  and  idiots, 
but  it  is  ill  suited  to  bearded  men.  Perhaps  one  reason  why 
you  are  so  anxious  to  establish  schools  for  Protestant  children 
and  erect  asylums  for  Protestant  orphans,  while  you  suffiar  starv- 
ing millions  of  your  own  flock  to  live  by  begging,  and  die  in 
ignorance,  is  to  be  found  in  the  secret  conviction  which  you 
feel  that  your  only  hope  of  success  is  among  those  who  cannot 
discriminate  between  legitimate  reasoning  and  puerile  sophisms. 
You  are  conscious,  sir,  of  your  total  incompetency  to  encounter 
men,  and  therefore  devote  your  ghostly  attention  to  silly  women 
and  prattling  babes. 


LETTER    V. 

Historical  difficulties  in  the  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility. 

The  infallibility  of  the  Papal  Church  is  a  doctrine  so  mo- 
mentous in  its  consequences,  as  to  deserve  a  more  extended  view 
than  a  simple  refutation  of  the  arguments  by  which  you  have 
endeavored  to  support  it.  This,  sir,  is  the  ngoixov  ipsvdog  of  your 
system — the  foundation  of  those  enormous  corruptions  in  doc- 
trine, and  abuses  in  discipline,  by  which  you  have  enslaved  the 
consciences  of  men,  and  transmuted  the  pure  and  glorious  gos- 
pel of  Christ  into  a  dark  and  malignant  superstition,  which, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  73 

through  fear  of  your-  malediction,  keeps  its  deluded  victims  in 
bondage  in  this  world,  and,  from  the  certain  7nalcdiction  of  God, 
dooms  them  to  perdition  in  the  world  to  come.  Your  preten- 
sions to  the  unerring  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost  render  change 
impossible,  and  reformation  hopeless.  Whatever  you  have  been 
in  the  past  ages  of  your  history  you  are  to-day ;  and  the  errors 
which,  in  other  times,  ignorance  engendered  from  a  warm  imagi- 
nation, or  which  avarice  and  ambition  have  found  it  convenient 
to  present  to  the  world  as  the  offspring  of  truth,  must  still  be  de- 
fended, and  still  carried  out  into  all  their  legitimate  results. 
The  impositions  which  you  practised  in  an  age  of  darkness, 
must  now  be  justified  in  an  age  of  light.  The  absurdities  of  the 
past,  which  sprang  from  the  blind  superstition  of  monks  and 
priests,  or  from  the  lordly  pretensions  of  Popes  and  Prelates, 
must  now  be  fathered  upon  the  Spirit  of  God ;  and  that  aid, 
which  neither  reason  nor  the  Scriptures  impart  to  your  dogmas, 
must  be  supported  by  an  arrogant  claim  to  the  control  and  super- 
vision of  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  is  your  last  resort;  and  when 
this  corner-stone  is  removed,  your  whole  system  totters  to  its  fall. 
It  is  the  impression  of  Divine  authority  that  conceals  from  your 
parasites  the  hideous  proportions  of  the  papal  fabric ;  it  is  this 
which  throws  a  charm  of  solemnity  around  it,  and  renders  that 
awful  and  venerable,  which,  seen  in  its  true  light,  would,  at  once, 
be  pronounced  the  temple  of  Antichrist.  The  question,  there- 
fore, of  infallibility,  is  to  you  a  question  of  life  and  death.  The 
very  being  of  the  papacy,  depends  upon  maintaining  the  spell 
by  which  you  have  so  long  deluded  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
Let  this  wand  of  your  enchantment  be  broken,  and  the  chambers 
of  your  imagery  disclosed,  and  darker  abominations  will  be  re- 
vealed than  those  which  the  prophet  beheld  in  the  temple  of  the 
Lord  at  Jerusalem. 

In  pretending  to  the  distinguished  prerogative  of  infallibility, 
there  is  a  prodigious  and  astonishing  contrast  between  the  weak- 
ness of  your  proofs  and  the  extravagance  of  your  claims.  It  seems 
that  you  act  upon  the  principle  by  which  Tertullian  once  sup- 
ported a  palpable  absurdity,  and  resolve  to  believe  it,  because,  un- 
der the  circumstances  of  the  case,  it  is  absolutely  imjjossihlc  that 
it  can  be  true. 


74  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOH    THE 

The  ordinary  arguments  which  your  writers  are  accustomed 
to  adduce,  proceed  upon  a  principle  radically  false.     They  reason 
from    expediency  to  fact,  and  because  an  infallible  tribunal  is 
supposed  to  be  a.  pjwper  appointment  for  suppressing  heresy  and 
terminating  controversy  in  matters  of  faith,  it  is  rashly  inferred 
that  such  a  tribunal  has  been  actually  established.     The  incon- 
sistency   of  such  an  arrangement  with  that  peculiar  probation 
which   the  moral    government  of  God  involves ;  in  which  our 
characters  are  tested,  our  principles  developed,  and  the  real  in- 
clinations of  the  heart  made  manifest;  a  probation  which  ne- 
cessarily supposes  temptations,  dangers  and  trials,  both  in  appre- 
hending the  truth  and  in  discharging  the  duties  of  life,  seems  to 
form  no  part  of  their  estimate.     With  such  a  condition  of  moral 
discipline  the  plan  which  the  providence  of  God  has  appointed, 
for  arriving  at  certainty  upon  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  is  per- 
fectly consistent.     The  truth  is  committed  to  written  documents 
— the  reception  of  those  documents  depends  in  a  great  degree 
upon  the  state  of  the  heart,  which,  as  the  medium  through  which 
it  must  pass,  imparts  its  own  tinge  to  the  evidence  submitted. 
They  that  are  willing  to  comply  with  the  commandments,  are  in 
that  mental  condition  which  disposes  them  to  receive  and  justly 
to  appreciate  the  truth  of  God  ;  and  to  all  such  the  Spirit  of  grace, 
which  the  Saviour  bequeathed  as  a  legacy  to  the  Church,  will 
impart  an  infallible  assurance  to  establish  their  minds.     A  plan 
like  this  is  in  harmonious  accordance  with  every  other  feature 
of  the  moral  government  of  God.     The  understanding  is  as  really 
tested  as  the  heart — or  rather  the  dispositions  of  the  heart — the 
moral  character  of  the  man  is  really  exhibited  by  his  dealings 
with  the  truth.     There  is  in  the  first  instance  no  overwhelming 
evidence  whicp  quells  opposition,  silences  prejudice,  and  conceals 
the  native  enmity  of  man  against  spiritual  light.     There  is  no 
resistless  demonstration  which   compels   assent,  and   which,  by 
rendering  us  timid  in  indulging  inclination,  may  make  us  less  vis- 
ibly vicious,  but  not  less  really  depraved,  nor  more  truly  virtuous. 
There  is  no  portentous  sign  from  heaven  which  startles  the  skep- 
tic in  his  parleys  with  error,  and  forces  him'^to  receive  what  his 
nature  leads  him  to  detest.     The  true  evidence  of  the  Gospel  is 
a  growing  evidence — sufficient  always  to  create  obligation  and 


APOCRYPHA  DISCUSSED  AND  REFUTED.  75 

to  produce  assurance,  but  effectual  only  as  the  heart  expands  in 
fellowship  with  God  and  becomes  assimilated  to  the  spirits  of  the 
just.  It  is  precisely  the  evidence  which  is  suited  to  our  moral 
condition.  And  any  views  of  expediency  which  would  prompt 
us  to  expect  a  different  kind  of  evidence,  an  evidence  which 
should  stifle  or  repress  those  peculiar  traits  of  character  by  which 
error  is  engendered,  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  state  in 
which  we  are  placed.  Hence  we  are  told  that  it  must  needs  he 
that  heresies  should  come,  that  they  which  are  approved  may  be 
made  manifest.  Our  real  condition  requires  the  possibility  of 
error ;  and  God  consequently  has  made  no  arrangements  for  ab- 
solutely terminating  controversies  and  settling  questions  of  faith 
without  regard  to  the  moral  sympathies  of  men.  Upon  the  sup- 
position, however,  that  a  kind  of  evidence  was  intended  to  be 
provided  by  which  the  truth  might  be  infallibly  apprehended 
while  the  heart  continued  in  rebellion  against  God ;  by  which 
the  possibility  of  cavil  might  be  removed  and  no  plausible  pre- 
text be  afforded  to  the  sophist ;  by  which,  in  fact,  the  light  ac- 
tually vouchsafed  should  not  only  be  sufficient,  but  wholly  irre- 
sistible— if  the  object  had  been  to  extirpate  error  and  to  prevent 
controversy,  it  would  have  been  a  less  circuitous  method  to 
have  made  each  man  personally  infallible,  and  thus  have  secured 
the  reception  of  the  truth.  The  argument  from  expediency  is 
certainly  as  strong  in  favor  of  individual  infallibility  as  in  favor 
of  the  infallibility  of  a  special  body — it  is  even  stronger,  for  the 
end  desired  to  be  gained  could  be  much  more  speedily  and 
effectually  accomplished.  Errors  would  not  only  be  checked  but 
prevented,  controversy  would  be  torn  up  by  the  roots,  and  the 
whole  world  would  be  made  to  harmonize  in  symbols  of  faith  1* 


*  "  But  it  is  more  useful  and  fit,"  you  say,  "  for  the  deciding  of  controver- 
sies, to  have,  besides  an  infallible  rule  to  go  by,  a  living,  infallible  judge  to  de- 
termine them  ;  and  from  hence  you  conclude  that  certainly  there  is  such  a  judge. 
But  why,  then,  may  not  another  say,  that  it  is  yet  more  useful,  for  many  excel- 
lent purposes,  that  all  the  patriarchs  should  be  infallible,  than  that  the  pope  only 
should?  Another,  that  it  v^^ould  be  yet  more  useful  that  all  the  archbishops  of 
every  province  should  be  so,  than  that  the  patriarchs  only  should  be  so.  Anoth- 
er, that  it  would  be  yet  more  useful,  if  all  the  bishops  of  every  diocese  were  so. 
Another,  that  it  would  be  yet  more  available  that  all  the  parsons  of  every 


76  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

The  method  of  reasoning,  consequently,  from  expediency  to 
fact  is  fallacious  and  unsafe :  and  if  the  magnificent  pretensions 
of  your  sect  rest  upon  no  firmer  basis  than  deceitful  notions  of 
utility  and  convenience,  they  are  indeed  built  upon  the  sand. 
Instead  of  a  solid  and  a  noble  fabric  of  imposing  strength  and 
commanding  grandeur,  you  present  us  with  a  structure  as  weak 
and  contemptible  as  the  toy-houses  of  children  constructed  of 
cards. 

There  are  no  less  than  three  different  opinions  entertained 
in  your  church,  as  to  the  organ  through  which  its  infallibility  is 
exercised  or  manifested.  This  single  circumstance  is  enough  to 
involve  the  whole  claim  in  contempt.  If  it  be  not  infallibly  cer- 
tain where  the  infallible  tribunal  is,  in  case  of  emergency,  to  be 
found,  the  old  logical  maxim  applies  with  undiminished  force, 
de  non  apparentihus  et  non  existentihus  eadem  est  ratio.  To 
settle  controversies,  it  is  not  enough  that  a  judge  exists,  his  ex- 
istence must  be  known,  and  his  court  accessible.  Uncertainty 
as  to  the  seat  of  an  infallible  authority,  is  just  as  fatal  to  the 
legitimate  exercise  of  its  functions,  as  uncertainty  in  regard  to 
the  being  of  the  authority  in  the  abstract.  To  resolve  our  doubts 
and  remove  our  difficulties,  some  of  your  Doctors  refer  us  to  the 
Pope  as  the  vicar  of  Christ,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  the  Teacher 
of  the  faithful,  and  plead  the  decisions  of  councils  in  behalf  of 
his  pretensions.  As  the  centre  of  unity  to  the  Church,  and  the 
fountain  or  source  of  ecclesiastical  power,  they  represent  him  as 
possessed  of  an  authority  as  absolute  as  that  with  which  the  head 

parish  should  be  so.  Another,  that  it  would  be  yet  more  excellent"  if  all  the 
fathers  of  families  were  so.  And,  lastly,  another,  that  it  were  much  more  to  be 
desired  that  every  man  and  every  woman  were  so:  just  as  much  as  the  pre- 
vention of  controversies  is  better  than  the  decision  of  them,  and  the  prevention 
of  heresies  better  than  the  condemnation  of  them  ;  and  upon  this  ground,  con- 
clude by  your  own  very  consequence,  that  not  only  a  general  council,  not  only 
the  pope,  but  all  the  patriarchs,  archbishops,  bishops,  pastors,  fathers,  nay,  all 
men  in  the  world,  are  infallible.  If  you  say  now,  as  I  am  sure  you  will,  that 
this  conclusion  is  most  gross  and  absurd,  against  sense  and  experience,  then 
must  also  the  ground  be  false  from  which  it  evidently  and  undeniably  follows, 
viz.,  that  the  course  of  dealing  with  men  seems  always  more  fit  to  Divine  Prov- 
idence, which  seems  more  fit  to  human  reason." — Chillingworth,  vol.  i.  p.  249. 
Oxford  Edition  of  1838. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  77 

controls  the  members  of  the  body.  Hence  your  bishops  are  no- 
thing but  his  vicars  ;  and,  in  token  of  their  bondage,  they  are  not 
content  with  the  usual  oaths  of  allegiance  by  which  subjects  are 
held  in  obedience  to  their  sovereign,  but  they  enter  into  a  solemn 
obligation  to  appear  personally  before  him  every  three  years,  to 
give  an  account  of  their  stewardship,  or  else  excuse  themselves 
by  an  adequate  deputy.  "  As  in  a  disciplined  army,"  says  Dr. 
Milner,  a  modern  writer  of  your  sect,  in  a  charge  which,  though 
intrinsically  worthless,  excited  too  much  controversy  to  be 
speedily  forgotten — "  as  in  a  disciplined  army,  the  soldiers  obey 
their  officers,  and  these,  other  officers  of  superior  rank,  who 
themselves  are  subject  to  a  commander-in-chief;  so  in  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  extending,  as  it  does,  from  the  rising  to  the  setting 
sun — the  faithful  of  all  nations  are  guided  by  their  pastors,  who, 
in  their  turns,  are  submissive  to  the  prelates,  whilst  the  whole 
hocly  is  subordinate  to  one  supreme  pastor,  whose  seat  is  the 
rallying-point  and  centre  of  them  all."  In  this  exquisite  system 
of  slavery,  the  Pope  is  evidently  the  sovereign  authority — the 
vi'hole  body  is  subordinate  to  him,  and  as  the  centre  and  rallying 
point  of  the  whole,  whatever  infallibility  the  church  possesses 
must  be  found  in  the  person  of  her  supreme  pastor.  Under  any 
other  theory  of  infallibility,  this,  it  may  be  well  to  remark,  is  and 
must  be  the  practical  working  of  your  system.  Your  leading 
maxim  is  obedience — there  must  be  no  investigation  of  the  right 
to  command — no  regard  to  the  propriety  of  the  precepts — the 
whole  duty  of  the  people  is  summed  up  in  a  single  word,  obey. 
This  system  of  absolute  submission  runs  up  unchecked  until  it 
terminates  in  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  at  RoniP,  whose  edicts  and 
decrees,  by  necessary  consequence,  none  can  question,  and  who 
is,  therefore,  the  absolute  lord  of  papal  faith.  This  seems  to  be 
the  inevitable  result  of  that  slavish  doctrine  of  passive  obedience 
which  your  pastors  inculcate,  and  without  which  your  church 
would  expire  in  a  day.  Hence  whether  you  lodge  infallibility 
with  councils — with  the  body  of  the  pastors  at  large,  or  give  the 
pope  an  ultimate  veto  upon  the  decisions  of  ecumenical  synods, 
to  this  complexion,  under  the  theory  of  implicit  obedience,  it 
must  unavoidably  come  at  last,  and  the  practical  impression  upon 
the  people   will    be  precisely  that,  which  we  are  told  by  intel- 


78  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

ligent  travellers,  prevails  in  Italy — "  the  pope  is  greater  than 
God."* 

It  is  evident  that  the  infallibility  of  the  pope  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated from  his  claim  to  supremacy.  To  prove  that  he  is  not 
supreme,  is,  in  other  words,  to  prove  that  he  is  not  infallible. 
Now  to  those  who  maintain  that  the  infallible  authority  of  the 
church  is  to  be  sought  in  the  person  of  his  Holiness,  this  his- 
torical difficulty  arises  :  Where 1  where  was  that  infalli- 
bility before  a  Supreme  Pastor  existed  ?  It  is  a  fact  sustained 
by  the  amplest  testimony  that  as  late,  at  least,  as  the  seventh 
century,  the  Bishops  of  the  Church,  not  excepting  the  Bishops  of 
Rome,  whatever  accidental  differences  prevailed  among  them, 
were  regarded  at  least  as  officially  equal.  According  to  Jerome, 
erery  Bishop,  whether  of  Rome,  Eugubium,  Constantinople, 
Rhegium,  Alexandria,  or  Tanis,  possessed  the  same  merit  and 
the  same  Priesthood. f  "  There  is  but  one  bishopric  in  the 
Church,"  says  Cyprian — "  and  every  bishop  has  an  undivided 
portion  in  it,"J  that  is,  it  is  one  office,  and  the  power  of  all  who 
are  invested  with  it  is  precisely  the  same.  In  his  letter  to  Pope 
Stephen,  this  doctrine  is  still  more  distinctly  announced,  but  it 
is  fully  brought  out  in  the  speech  which  he  delivered  at  the 
opening  of  the  great  Council  of  Carthage.  *'  For  no  one  of  us," 
says  he,  ''  makes  himself  bishop  of  bishops,  and  compels  his 
colleagues,  by  tyrannical  power,  to  a  necessity  of  complying; 
forasmuch  as  every  bishop,  according  to  the  liberty  and  power 
that  is  granted  him,  is  free  to  act  as  he  sees  fit ;  and  can  no  more 
be  judged  by  others,  than  he  can  judge  them.  But  let  us  all 
expect  the  judgment  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  only  hath 
power  both  to  invest  us  with  the  government  of  his  Church,  and 
to  pass  sentence  upon  our  actions." 

*  "  II  papa  e  piu  che  Dio  per  noi  altri." — For  a  remarkable  account  of  the 
extravagant  adulation  which  has  been  heaped  upon  the  Popes,  see  Erasmus  on 
1  Tim.  1.  G. 

t  Epist.  85,  ad  Evang. — Ubicunque  fuerit  Episcopus,  sive  Romae,  sive 
Eugubii,  sive  Constantinopoli,  sive  Rhegii,  sive  Alexandriae,  sive  Tanis,  ejus- 
dem  meriti,  ejusdem  est  et  Sacerdotii. 

t  De  Unitat.  Eccles.  Episcopatus  unus  est,  cujus  a  singulis  in  solidum 
par  s  tenetur. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  79 

But  an  authority  which  ought  to  be  decisive  on  this  question 
is  to  be  found  in  the  testimony  of  Gregory  the  Great,  who  was 
filled  with  horror  at  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  the  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  to  be  treated  as  a  universal  Bishop,  and  in  the 
strongest  terms  reprobated  the  idea  that  any  such  title  could  be 
lawfully  applied  to  any  person  whatever.* 

Durinof  these  six  centuries  in  which  the  Church  was  without 
a  visible  head,  when  there  was  neither  centre  of  unity  nor  rally- 
ing-point  to  the  whole ;  when,  in  the  modern  sense,  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  a  pope,  where  was  the  infallibility  of  the  body? 
Most  evidently  it  could  not  have  been  in  the  Bishop  of  Rome — 
he  was  not  then  what  he  is  now — and  those  who  contend  that  he 
constitutes  now  the  infallible  tribunal  of  the  Church,  are  reduced 
to  the  awkward  necessity  of  maintaining,  either  that  there  was 
then  no  infallible  tribunal  at  all,  or  that  it  has  since  been  trans- 
ferred from  its  ancient  seat  to  the  person  of  the  pope.  If  the 
latter  alternative  should  be  assumed,  upon  what  grounds  and  by 
what  authority  was  the  transfer  made — when,  where,  and  how? 
These  are  questions  which  require  to  be  answered  with  absolute 
certainty  before  we  can  have  any  absolute  certainty  that  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  is  not  as  liable  to  error  now  as  he  was  in  the 
days  of  Firmilian.t 

The  theory  which  lodges  infallibility  with  general  councils 
is  pressed  with  historical  difficulties  just  as  strong  as  those  which 
lie  against  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  If  you  except  the  Synod 
at  Jerusalem,  in  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  which  can  hardly  be 
called  ecumenical  or  general,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  gen- 
eral council  of  the  Church,  until  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourth 
century.  For  two  hundred  years,  consequently,  after  the  last  of 
the  Apostles  had  fallen  asleep,  the  Church  had  neglected  to 
speak,  though  numerous  and  dangerous  heresies  had  been  indus- 


*  Epist.  lib.  vi.  epist.  30. — Ego  fidenter  dico,  quod  quisquis  se  Universalem 
Sacerdotem  vocat  velvocaii  desiderat,  in  elatione  sua,  Antichristum  praecurrit. 
I  affirm  with  confidence  that  whosoever  calls  himself,  or  wishes  to  be  called, 
universal  Bishop,  in  this  lifting  up  of  himself  is  the  forerunner  of  Antichrist. 

t  See  his  Epistle  to  Pope  Stephen  charging  him  both  with  error  and 
schism . 


80  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

triously  circulated,  through  the  only  organ  by  which  she  could 
pronounce  an  infallible  decision.  During  all  that  time  she  was 
shorn  of  her  strength.  Is  it  probable,  is  it  credible,  that  while 
the  most  fatal  errors  were  disseminated  in  regard  to  the  person 
of  Christ,  and  the  wildest  vagaries  were  indulged  by  the  Mon- 
tanists  and  Gnostics,  there  existed  an  authority  to  which  the 
whole  Church  deferred  as  supreme,  and  which  by  a  single  word 
was  competent  to  crush  these  growing  delusions?  Why  did  the 
Fathers  ply  so  strenuously  the  strong  arguments  of  Scriptural 
truth,  the  words  and  teachings  of  prophets  and  apostles,  if  there 
was  indeed  a  stronger  argument  to  which  they  might  resort,  and 
from  whose  decision  there  was  no  appeal  ?  A  judge  that  ne- 
glects to  act  in  critical  emergencies,  just  at  the  time  when  his 
authority  is  needed,  is  little  to  be  preferred  to  no  judge  at  all. 

There  is  still  another  historical  fact  which  it  is  difficult  to 
reconcile  with  synodical  supremacy.  The  early  councils  attri- 
buted the  authority  of  the  canons  which  they  settled  to  the  sanc- 
tion o^  the  Emperor.  They  pretended  to  no  infallible  jurisdic- 
tion ;  their  decrees  were  not  set  forth  as  the  word  of  God  ; 
the  veto  of  the  Emperor  destroyed  them ;  his  favor  made  them 
obligatory,  as  far  as  his  power  extended.*  Were  the  Apostles 
thus  helpless  without  the  imperial  sanction  1  Did  their  instruc- 
tions acquire  the  force  of  Divine  laws  from  the  favor  of  Nero,  or 
the  patronage  of  the  Caesars?  If  the  councils  were  as  infallible 
as  the  Apostles,  why  did  they  not  proclaim  their  edicts  in  the 
na7ne  of  God,  and,  whether  the  Emperors  approved  or  condemned, 
maintain  their  absolute  power  to  bind  the  conscience  by  the  au- 
thority of  Christ  ?  These  councils  were  evidently  expedients  of 
peace,  adopted  by  the  government  as  well  as  by  the  church,  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  uniformity  of  faith,  and  preventing  reli- 
gious disturbances  in  the  empire.  They  were  not  regarded  as 
the  unerring  representatives  of  Christ — the  deference  paid  to  the 
writings  of  the  Apostles  was  never  paid  to  them,  they  were  not 
acknowledged  as  the  organ  of  the  Spirit.  Others  again  maintain 
that  no  council  is  infallible  whose  convocation  and  decisions 
have  not  alike  received  the  sanction  of  the  Pope.     These  per- 

*  See  Barrow,  Suprera.  Pope,  and  passages  referred  to,  Suppos.  6. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    RKPUTED,  81 

sons  are  truly  in  a  sad  dilemma;  for  all  the  early  councils  were 
confessedly  convened  by  the  mandate  of  the  Emperor,  and  many 
were  acknowledged  as  authoritative  in  their  own  day,  whose 
canons  were  opposed  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  According  to 
this  principle,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  infallibility  in  the 
church,  until  the  Pope  acquired  the  dominion  of  an  earthly 
Prince,  and  could  assemble  the  subjects  of  the  realm  from  dif- 
ferent quarters  of  the  globe  by  his  own  sovereign  authority,* 

If,  as  a  last  desperate  resort  against  all  these  historical  objec- 
tions, it  should  be  asserted  that  the  unanimous  consent  of  all  the 
pastors  of  the  church,  was  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  infallible  truth 
of  any  system  of  doctrines — the  question  might  still  be  asked, 
whether  such  unanimity  has  ever  prevailed,  and  how,  in  refer- 
ence to  any  given  point,  it  can  be  ascertained.  The  idea  of 
reaching  the  truth  by  a  system  of  eclecticism,  collecting  only  the 
doctrines  which  have  never  been  disputed,  is  utterly  unworthy 
of  a  rational  understanding.  It  proceeds  upon  the  wholly  gratu- 
itous assumption,  that  nothing  important  has  ever  been  denied, 
or  nothing  evidently  true  has  ever  been  questioned.  The  his- 
tory of  religion,  however,  affords  the  most  abundant  proof  that 
the  vanity  of  man,  even  apart  from  considerations  of  interest, 
may  be  an  adequate  motive  for  attacking  the  most  sacred  opin- 
ions and  venerable  institutions,  while  others  less  important  are 
protected  from  insult  by  their  acknowledged  insignificance. 
Such  is  the  weakness  of  humanity  that  fame  is  often  more  pre- 
cious than  truth,  and  he  who  cannot  hope  to  rise  to  distinction 
by  contributing  to  the  general  fund  of  human  knowledge,  is 
sometimes  tempted  to  seek  notoriety  from  the  profane  attempt  to 
demolish  the  temple  erected  by  the  labor  of  years.  The  very 
grandeur  of  the  edifice  provokes  the  efforts  of  infatuated  vanity. 
To  suppose,  consequently,  that  those  doctrines  of  religion  are 
alone  infallibly  true  which  have  met  with  universal  approbation, 
is  to  overlook  the  weakness  and  folly  of  man,  and  to  attribute  to 
his  conduct  in  regard  to  religion,  a  wisdom  and  propriety  which 
the  history  of  the  past  by  no  means  sustains.  It  is  much  more 
natural  to  suppose  that  the  most  important  truths,  should  be  the 

*  See  Barrow,  Suprem.  Popp,  and  passages  referred  to,  Suppoa.  6. 

5 


8^  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

subjects  of  the  fiercest  contentions — that  ambitious  churchmen 
who  had  been  defeated  in  their  views  of  personal  aggrandize- 
ment, should  endeavor  to  wreak  their  vengeance,  and  gratify  their 
vanity,  by   aiming  their  blows  at  the  very  vitals  of  Christianity. 
Hence  we  find,  in  fact,  that  a  large  share  of  the  distractions  of 
Christendom,  the  most  pestiferous  and  deadly  errors,  have  owed 
their  origin  to   the  spleen    and   mortification   of  their    authors. 
How  much,  too,  ambition,  the  master-sin  by  which  angels  fell, 
has  corrupted  the  church,  and  perverted  the  right  ways  of  the 
Lord,  the  whole  history  of  the  Papacy  abundantly  attests.     Arius 
failed  in  obtaining  a  bishopric,  and  vented  his  malignity  in   at- 
tacking the  very  foundation  of  the  faith.     The  extent  to  which 
prejudice,  mere  prejudice,  prevailed  in  the  controversies  of  the 
Iconoclasts  and  Monothelites,  is  an  amusing  commentary  on  the 
harmony  of  priests  in  fundamental  doctrines ;    and  there  is  an 
instance  on  record  of  a  famous  interpreter,  who  confessedly  dis- 
torted a  passage  of  Scripture  from  its  just  and  obvious  meaning, 
because  the  leader  of  another  sect  had  endorsed  it  in  his  com- 
mentaries.    A  man,  consequently,  who  should  act  upon  the  fa- 
mous maxim,  quod  semper,  quod  tibique,  quod  ab  omnibus,  in  the 
formation  of  his  creed,  and  resolve  to  admit  nothing  as  infallible 
truth  which   had  not  the  mark  of  universal   consent,  might  con- 
dense his  articles,  in  a  very  narrow  compass.     Not  a  single  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  revelation,  upon  this  absurd  hypothesis,  would 
be  regarded  as  an  essential  element  of  faith.     The  plenary  inspi- 
ration of  the  Scriptures  has  been  confessedly  denied  by  distin- 
guished divines — whole  books  of  the  Bible  have  been  ruthlessly 
discarded  from  the  canon,   and  even  Popes  themselves  are  said 
to  have  treated  the  history  of  Jesus  as  a  gainful  fable.     It  is  im- 
portant, therefore,  to  believe  nothing  about  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures.     The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity   has  been  bitterly  as- 
sailed, the  incarnation  of  the  Redeemer  openly  derided,  and  the 
work  of  the  Spirit  denounced  as  enthusiasm.     While  one  council 
has  determined  that  Christ  was  the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father, 
another,  with  equal  pretensions  to  infallibility,  has  decided  against 
his  divinity.     Nothing,  therefore,   is  infallibly  certain  about  the 
person  of  Christ,  and  a  man  may  be  a  very  good  Catholic,  ac- 
cording to  the  maxim  in  question,  without  any  opinion  of  the 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  83 

Saviour  at  all.  Nay,  the  very  being  of  God  may  be  lawfully 
discarded  from  a  creed  collected  in  this  way,  since  the  succes- 
sors of  the  Fisherman,  unless  they  are  greatly  belied,  have  not 
occasionally  scrupled  to  indulge  in  skeptical  doubts  upon  this 
prime  article  of  religion.  This  unanimous  consent  of  the  pas- 
tors of  the  church,  therefore,  is  a  mere  phantom  of  the  brain 
always  mocking  our  efforts  to  compass  it,  and  retreating  be- 
fore us  like  the  verge  of  the  horizon.  It  is  "  vox  et  prseterea 
nihil." 

But  suppose  such  an  unanimous  consent  existed  in  fact  in 
reference  to  all  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Suppose  that  no 
pastors  of  the  Church  had  ever  been  heretical,  how  is  an  Indian 
or  negro  to  become  acquainted  with  a  testimony  that  embraces 
all  the  priests  that  have  ever  said  or  sung  the  services  of  the 
Church,  from  the  age  of  the  Apostles  to  the  period  of  his  own  ex- 
istence? To  achieve  such  a  task  would  require  a  critical  appa- 
ratus hardly  less  formidable  than  that  which  you  pronounce  to  be 
essential  to  the  settlement  of  the  canon. 

I  have  now  reviewed  the  leading  theories  in  resrard  to  the  seat 
of  the  infallibility  of  your  church  which  have  been  maintained 
among  you,  and  have  shown  them  to  be  encompassed  with  histo- 
rical difficulties  fatal  to  their  truth.  There  is  one  general  ob- 
jection of  the  same  kind  which  covers  them  all,  and  which,  upon 
the  approved  principle  of  logic,  that  two  contradictories  cannot 
possibly  both  be  true,  would  seem  to  settle  the  matter.  It  is  in- 
dubitably certain  that  Popes  have  contradicted  Popes,  Councils 
have  contradicted  Councils,  and  Pastors  have  contradicted  Pas- 
tors, and  all  have  contradicted  the  Scriptures.  Notwithstandino- 
your  vain  boasts  of  the  unchanging  uniformity  of  your  system, 
and  the  perfect  consistency  and  harmony  of  the  doctrines  of  faith 
which  your  church  in  every  age  has  inculcated,  it  is  still  histori- 
cally true,  that  you  have  exhibited  at  different  periods  such 
variety  of  tenets,  as  to  render  you  wonderfully  like  the  adminis- 
tration of  Lord  Chatham,  as  inimitably  described  by  Burke. 
Your  syntagma  confcssioniim  would  present  a  scene  "  so 
checkered  and  speckled  ;  a  piece  of  joinery,  so  crossly  indented 
and  whimsically  dovetailed  ;  a  cabinet  so  variously  inlaid  ;  such 
a  piece  of  diversified  mosaic,  such  a  tesselated  pavement  with- 


84  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

out  cement — here  a  bit  of  black  stone,  and  there  a  bit  of  white — 
that  it  might  be  indeed  a  very  curious  show,  but  utterly  unsafe 
to  touch,  and  unsure  to  stand  on." 

In  the  short  compass  of  twenty-three  years,  to  give  a  specimen 
of  your  wonderful  consistency,  we  have  idolatry  both  abolished 
and  established  by  the  councils  of  a  church,  which,  according  to 
Bossuet,  never  varies, — the  Council  of  Constantinople  unani- 
mously decreeing  the  removal  of  images,  and  the  abolition  of 
image-worship,  and  the  Council  of  Nice  re-establishing  both,  and 
pronouncing  an  anathema  on  all  who  had  concurred  in  the  pre- 
vious decision.  The  second  Council  of  Ephesus  approved  and 
sanctioned  the  impiety  of  Eutyches,  and  the  Council  of  Chalce- 
don  condemned  it.  The  fourth  Council  of  Lateran  asserted  the 
doctrine  of  a  physical  change  in  the  eucharistic  elements,  in  ex- 
press contradiction  to  the  teachings  of  the  primitive  church,  and 
the  evident  declarations  of  the  Apostles  of  the  Lord.  The  sec- 
ond Council  of  Orange  gave  its  sanction  to  some  of  the  leading 
doctrines  of  the  school  of  Augustine,  and  the  Council  of  Trent 
threv/  the  Church  into  the  arms  of  Pelagius.  Thus,  at  different 
periods,  every  type  of  doctrine  has  prevailed  in  the  bosom  of  an 
unchangeable  Church.  She  has  been  distracted  with  every 
variety  of  sect,  tormented  with  every  kind  of  controversy,  con- 
vulsed with  every  species  of  heresy,  and  at  last  has  settled  down 
upon  a  platform  which  annihilates  the  word  of  God — denounces 
the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles,  and  bars  the  gates  of 
salvation  against  men. 

That  the  Scriptures,  and  not  the  Priesthood  or  any  infallible 
body  of  men,  were  the  only  channels  through  which  an  infallible 
knowledge  of  Divine  truth  was  to  be  acquired,  is  so  clearly  the 
doctrine  of  the  primitive  Church,  which  was  founded  by  the 
hands  of  the  Apostles  themselves,  as  to  be  absolutely  fatal  to 
any  of  the  forms;  in  which  the  pretensions  of  Rome  are  asserted. 
Among  the  host  of  testimonies  that  might  be  adduced  to  establish 
and  corroborate  this  vital  point, the  following  maybe  deemed  a  suf- 
ficient exposition  of  the  views  of  the  Fathers  :  "  Look  not,"  says 
Chrysostom,  "  for  any  other  teacher — you  have  the  oracles  ofGod, 
no  one  can  teach  like  them.    Any  other  instructor  may,  from  some 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  85 

erroneous  principle,  conceal  from  you  many  things  of  the  greatest 
importance;  and,  therefore,  I  exhort  you  to  procure  for  your- 
selves Bibles.  Have  them  for  your  constant  instructors,  and  in 
all  your  trials  have  recourse  to  them  for  the  remedies  you 
need."* 

'  It  behooveth,"  says  Basil,  ''  that  every  word  and  every  work 
should  be  accredited  by  the  testimony  of  the  inspired  Scrip- 
ture."t  **  It  is  the  duty  of  hearers,"  he  observes  again,  *'  when 
they  have  been  instructed  in  the  Scriptures,  to  try  and  examine 
by  them  the  things  spoken  by  their  teachers,  to  receive  whatever 
is  consonant  to  those  Scriptures,  and  to  reject  whatever  is  alien, 
for  thus  they  will  comply  with  the  injunction  of  St.  Paul,  'To 
prove  all  things  and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good.'  "|  "  With- 
out the  word,"  says  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  "  all  religious  investi- 
gation is  vain — the  holy  prophetic  Scriptures  are  the  foundation 
of  religious  truth — the  rule  of  life — the  high  road  to  salvation. "§ 

**  Whence,"  says  Cyprian,  "is  this  tradition  (alluding  to  a 
pretended  tradition  of  Stephen,  Bishop  of  Rome)  ?  Is  it  delivered 
down  to  us  on  the  authority  of  the  Lord,  and  of  the  Gospel,  or  from 
the  precepts  and  writings  of  the  Apostles  ?  For  God  Himself 
testifies  that  those  things  which  are  written  are  to  be  observed. 
(Josh,  i,  8.)  And  the  Lord,  sending  his  Apostles,  commands 
the  nations  to  be  baptized,  and  to  be  taught  to  observe  whatso- 
ever He  has  commanded.  If,  therefore,  it  be  prescribed  in  the 
Gospel,  or  contained  in  the  Epistles,  or  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  by 
all  means  let  this  divine  and  holy  tradition  be  observed.  What 
obstinacy,  what  presumption,  to  prefer  the  tradition  of  men  to  the 
Divine  ordinance,  without  considering  that  God  is  angry  and 
provoked  whenever  human  tradition  breaks  and  overlooks  the 
Divine  commands  "|| 

In  the  Scriptures,  then,  according  to  these  venerable  men, 
and  in  the  Scriptures  alone,  we  possess  the  charter  of  our  faith, 
pure  and  uncorrupted  as  it  came  from  the  inspired  breasts  of  the 


*  See  also  Chrysostom's  3d  Horn,  de  Laz.     The  truth  is,  a  volume  might  be 
collected  from  this  Father  in  support  of  my  position. 

t  Moral  Reg.  2G.  X  Ibid.  72. 

^  Admon.  to  the  Gentiles.  ||  Epist.  74,  Pompcio. 


86  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Apostles ;  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  moving  these  chosen  ambassa- 
dors of  Christ  to  commit  his  infallible  teachings  to  imperishable 
records,  secured  that  certainty,  in  the  transmission  of  Christian 
doctrine,  which  completely  obviates  the  necessity  of  an  infallible 
body  of  men.  Here  is,  according  to  the  Fathers,  what  all  his- 
tory shows  the  priesthood  of  Rome  is  not — a  safe,  wise,  adequate, 
successful  provision  against  the  error  and  change-making  ten- 
dency of  man. 

I  need  not  add,  that  this  appears  to  be  the  uniform  doctrine 
of  the  Scriptures  themselves  ;  not  only  do  they  assert  their  own 
sufficiency  and  completeness  as  a  rule  of  faith,  but  that  they  were 
written  with  the  design  of  handing  down,  in  their  integrity  and 
purity,  the  doctrines  which  the  Apostles  taught,  and  the  early 
Christians  received.  The  Evangelist  Luke,  in  recording  the 
motives  which  induced  him  to  commit  his  Gospel  to  writing, 
states  distinctly  that  his  object  was  that  the  certainty  of  those 
things  which  had  been  previously  communicated  by  oral  teach- 
incr,  might  be  fully  apprehended.  He  proceeds  upon  the  just 
and  natural  principle,  that  written  documents  presented  a  safer 
channel  for  the  transmission  of  truth  than  verbal  tradition. 
Peter,  when  about  to  put  off  his  mortal  tabernacle,  makes 
provision  for  perpetuating  the  faith,  after  his  decease,  by  writing 
his  Second  Epistle.  Here  was  the  time  and  here  was  the  place 
for  the  pretended  founder  of  the  Papacy  to  assert  the  prerogatives 
of  his  see.  But  not  a  word  does  he  utter  of  living  teachers — of 
any  infallible  tribunal  composed  of  men.  To  his  mind  icritten 
memorials  were  the  true  security  for  preserving  entire  Apostolical 
instructions.*     But  the  grand  and  fatal  objection  to  the  doctrine 

*  "  The  claim  of  infallibility,  or  even  authority,  to  prescribe  magisterially 
to  the  opinions  and  consciences  of  men,  whether  in  an  individual  or  in  assem- 
blies and  collections  of  men,  is  never  to  be  admitted.  Admitted,  said  I  ?  It  is 
not  to  be  heard  with  patience,  unless  it  be  supported  by  a  miracle  ;  and  this 
very  text  of  Scripture  (2  Pet.  i.  20,  21)  is  manifestly,  of  all  others,  the  most 
adverse  to  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  Had  it  been  the  in- 
tention of  God,  that  Christians,  after  the  death  of  the  Apostles,  should  take  the 
sense  of  Scripture,  in  all  obscure  and  doubtful  passages,  from  the  mouth  of  an 
infallible  interpreter,  whose  decisions  in  all  points  of  doctrine,  faith  and  prac- 
tice, should  be  oracular  and  final,  this  was  the  occasion  for  the  Apostle  to  have 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    llEFUTED.  87 

of  infallibility,  in  whatever  form  it  is  asserted,  is,  that  it  is  totally 
destitute  of  the  only  kind  of  proof  by  which  it  can  be  possibly 
supported.  To  exempt  a  single  individual,  or  any  body  of  men, 
from  the  possibility  of  error,  is  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  God. 
It  depends  upon  Him,  therefore,  and  upon  Him  alone,  to  declare 
whether  He  has  granted  this  distinction  to  the  Popes  of  Rome, 
the  Councils  of  the  Church,  or  the  whole  body  of  its  pastors. 
This  is  a  fact  which  can  only  be  substantiated  by  ^Divine  revela- 
tion. This  is  the  sort  of  evidence  which  the  case  requires,  and 
without  this  evidence  all  such  pretensions  are  vain,  delusive,  ar- 
rogant, and  blasphemous.  Abstract  reasoning  can  avail  no- 
thing; there  must  be  a  plain  declaration  from  the  Lord.  Where, 
I  ask,  and  ask  triumphantly,  is  such  a  declaration  to  be  found  ? 
Where  has  God  confirmed  by  miracles  the  extravagant  claims  of 
the  Papal  community?  To  look  for  it  in  the  Scriptures,  would 
involve  the  supposition  that  the  Scriptures  are  already  known  to 
be  inspired — the  proof  would  become  destructive  of  the  end  for 
which  it  was  sought.  Papists  tell  us  that  we  cannot  be  assured 
that  the  Scriptures  are  divinely  inspired,  until  we  are  assured 
that  the  decisions  of  the  Church  are  infallible.  It  would  be,  then, 
most  preposterous  in  them  to  remand  us  to  the  Scriptures  to 
prove  their  claims,  when  the  only  authenticity  they  ascribe  to 

mentioned  it,  to  have  told  us  plainly  whither  we  should  resort  for  the  unerring 
explication  of  those  prophecies  which,  it  seems,  so  well  deserve  to  be  studied  and 
understood.  And  from  St.  Peter,  in  particular,  of  all  the  Apostles,  this  informa- 
tion was  in  all  reason  to  be  expected,  if,  as  the  vain  tradition  goes,  this  oracular 
gift  was  to  be  lodged  with  his  successors.  This,  too,  was  the  time  when  the 
mention  of  the  thing  was  most  Hkely  to  occur  to  the  Apostle's  thoughts,  when 
he  was  about  to  be  removed  from  the  superintendence  of  the  church,  and  was 
composing  an  epistle  for  the  direction  of  the  flock,  which  he  so  faithfully  had 
fed,  after  his  departure.  Yet  St.  Peter,  at  this  critical  season,  when  his  mind 
was  filled  with  an  interested  care  for  the  welfare  of  the  church  after  his  decease, 
upon  an  occasion  which  might  naturally  lead  him  to  mention  all  means  of  in- 
struction that  were  likely  to  be  provided  :  in  these  circumstances,  St.  Peter  gives 
not  the  most  distant  intimation  of  a  living  oracle  to  be  perpetually  maintained 
in  the  succession  of  the  Roman  Bishops.  On  the  contrary,  he  overthrow.^  their 
aspiring  claims  by  doing  that  which  supersedes  the  supposed  necessity  of  any 
such  institution  ;  he  lays  down  a  plain  rule,  which,  judiciously  npplied,  may  ena- 
ble every  private  Christian  to  interpret  the  written  oracles  of  prophecy,  in  all 
points  of  general  importance,  for  himself" — Horsely's  Sermons,  vol.  i.  Serm.  15. 


B8  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

the  Scriptures  is  derived  from  these  claims  ?  Still  we  may  safely 
challenge  them  to  produce  from  the  Bible  a  single  passage  which 
directly  asserts,  or  by  necessary  implication  involves,  the  propo- 
sition— either  that  the  Pope,  in  his  official  relations,  is  an  infalli- 
ble expounder  of  the  faith,  or  that  general  councils  are  unerring 
in  their  decisions,  or  that  the  whole  body  of  pastors  shall  be  pre- 
served inviolably  from  error.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  distinctly 
told  that  Peter  played  the  hypocrite  and  was  rebuked  by  Paul,  and 
the  Ephesian  elders  are  solemnly  assured  that  from  even  among 
themselves,  among  the  very  teachers  of  the  Church,  grievous 
wolves  should  arise,  not  sparing  the  flock.  And  the  voice  of  all 
history — though  the  Bible  says  nothing  specifically  about  them, 
as  never  contemplating  such  a  phenomenon — the  voice  of  all  his- 
tory abundantly  attests  that  councils  have  erred,  and  so  dissipates 
the  idle  fiction  of  their  infallibility.  Is  there,  then,  any  other 
revelation,  beside  the  sacred  oracles,  from  which  the  infallibility 
of  the  Church  may  be  gathered  ?  What  messenger  has  ever  been 
commissioned  to  proclaim  this  truth,  and  to  seal  his  commission 
by  miraculous  achievements?  Where  has  the  voice  of  God  ever 
commanded  us  to  submit  to  Rome  as  His  representative  and 
vicar  ?  Where  are  the  Divine  credentials  of  Papal  infallibility  1 
Until  these  questions  are  satisfactorily  answered,  Rome  must  be 
viewed  in  the  light  of  an  impostor,  assuming  to  herself  that  su- 
preme deference  which  is  due  exclusively  to  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Her  pretensions  must  be  regarded  as  the  offspring  of  fraud,  en- 
gendered by  am.bition  and  nurtured  by  interest,  which  none  can 
acknowledge  without  treason  against  God,  and  perdition  to  them- 
selves. Like  the  harlot  in  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  she  stands 
arrayed  in  gaudy  attire  to  beguile  the  simple,  but  her  feet  take 
hold  on  death,  and  her  steps  lead  down  to  hell. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  89 

LETTER   VI. 

The  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility  the  Parent  of  Skepticism. 

To  abandon  the  exercise  of  private  judgment,  and  intrust  the 
understanding  to  the  guidance  of  teachers,  arrogant  enough  to 
claim  infallibility,  without  producing  the  credentials  of  a  Divine 
commission,  is  to  encourage  a  despotism  which  none  can  sanc- 
tion without  the  express  authority  of  God.  Private  judgment, 
indeed,  can  never  be  wholly  set  aside  ;  the  pretensions  of  an 
infallible  instructor  must  be  submitted  to  the  understandings  of 
men,  and  finally  determined  by  each  man's  convictions  of  truth 
and  justice.  The  ultimate  appeal  must  be  to  that  very  reason, 
which,  in  its.  independent  exercise,  is  dreaded  as  the  parent  of  so 
much  mischief,  the  prolific  source  of  so  much  schism.  It  is  a 
circumstance,  however,  not  sufficiently  regarded,  that  the  preten- 
sions of  Rome  to  that  degree  of  inspiration  which  she  arrogantly 
claims,  cannot  be  admitted  without  striking  at  the  basis  of  all 
human  knowledge ;  confounding  the  distinctions  of  truth  and 
falsehood,  and  laying  the  foundations  of  a  skepticism  more  ma- 
lignant and  desolating  than  the  worst  calamities  which  can  pos- 
sibly result  from  the  free  and  unhampered  indulgence  of  private 
opinion.  As  extremes  are  so  intimately  connected,  that  the  least 
touch  of  the  pencil  can  translate  expressions  of  joy  into  symp- 
toms of  sorrow,  so  those  who  seek  to  remove  the  occasions  of 
difference,  to  terminate  schism,  extinguish  controversy,  and  es- 
tablish religion  upon  the  strongest  grounds  of  absolute  certainty, 
by  resorting  to  a  guide  that  claims  infallibility,  without  those 
signs  and  wonders,  which  indubitably  declare  that  God's  Spirit 
is  in  him,  and  God's  hand  upon  him,  pursue  a  course  which  has, 
in  reality,  a  striking  and  inevitable  tendency  to  conduct  the  mind 
to  a  dreary  and  hopeless  Pyrrhonism.  There  can  be  no  assur- 
ance of  truth,  without  a  corresponding  confidence  in  our  facul- 
ties;  the  light  which  we  enjoy — the  convictions  of  our  minds — 
the  appearances  of  things  to  the  human  understanding;  these  are 
to  us  the  measures  of  truth  and  falsehood.  Whoever  is  not  con- 
tent to  receive  the  information  of  his  senses,  the  reports  of  his 

5* 


90  ROMANIST    ARGUJVIENTS    FOR    THE 

consciousness,  and  the  evident  conclusions  of  his  own  mind,  de- 
duced in  conformity  with  those  fundamental  laws  of  belief  which 
are  presupposed  in  all  its  operations  ;  whoever,  in  other  words, 
looks  upon  his  faculties  as  instruments  of  falsehood,  and  distrusts 
the  clearest  exercise  of  his  powers ;  whoever  refuses  to  take  upon 
trust  what  the  very  constitution  of  his  nature  inclines  him  to  be- 
lieve, must  rest  content  with  the  cheerless  prospect  of  perpetual 
ignorance. 

There  can  be  no  knowledge  without  previous  belief,  deter- 
mined by  the  law  of  our  nature,  and  liable  to  no  suspicious  of 
deception,  because  ultimately  resolvable  into  the  veracity  of  God. 
There  are  certain  primary  convictions — certain  original  princi- 
ples, as  Aristotle  calls  them,  through  which  we  know  and  believe 
every  thing  else,  and  which   must,  therefore,  themselves  be  re- 
ceived with  paramount  certainty.     These  instinctive  elements  of 
natural  faith  constitute  the  standard  of  evidence,  the  foundation 
of  truth — the  groundwork   of  knowledge.     Truth  is  the  natural 
and  necessary  aliment  of  the  soul  ;   and  the  faculties  of  the  mind 
in   their  original    constitution,  were  evidently  adjusted  with   a 
special  reference  to  its  pursuit,  investigation  and  enjoyment.     As 
the  stability  of  external  nature  responds  harmoniously  to  our  in- 
stinctive belief  of  the  uniformity  of  its  laws,  so  all  the  elements  of 
faith  which  enter  into  the  essential  constitution  of  the  mind,  are 
as  admirably  and  unerringly  adapted  to  their  appropriate  objects. 
Whatever,  consequently,  has  a  tendency  to  unsettle  a  man's  con- 
fidence in  the  legitimate  and  natural  exercise  of  his  faculties,  or 
to  call   into  question  what  a  distinguished  philosopher  has  de- 
nominated   the  "  fundamental    laws  of  human    belief,"   has    an 
equal  tendency  to  introduce  a  general  skepticism,  in  which  the 
distinctions  of  truth  and  falsehood  are  confounded,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  life  and  death  promiscuously  mingled.      To  bring  the 
different  powers  of  the  soul  into  a  state  of  unnatural  collision — 
to  set  our  faculties  at  war — to  involve  their  functions  in  suspicion 
— to  make  the  deductions  of  the  understanding  contradict  the 
original  convictions  of  our  nature,  is  effectually  to  sap  the  foun- 
dations of  knowledge — to  annihilate  all  certainty — to  reduce  truth 
and  falsehood  to  a  common  insignificance,  and  expose  the  mind 
to  endless  perplexity,  confusion,  and   despair.     Now  this  is  pre- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  91 

cisely  the  result  which  the  Church  of  Rome  accomplishes  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  foolish  enough  to  receive  her  as  an  infal- 
lible teacher,  and  her  instructions  as  infallible  truth.  She  sub- 
verts the  original  constitution  of  the  mind — contradicts  the  pri- 
mary and  instinctive  convictions  of  every  human  understanding 
— and  pronounces  that  to  be  absolutely  certain,  which  God, 
through  the  essential  principles  of  human  belief,  declares  to  be 
absolutely  false.  She  destroys  the  only  foundation  of  evidence, 
extinguishes  its  light,  surrounds  her  followers  with  an  artificial 
darkness,  and  invites  them  to  a  repose  from  which  no  voice  of 
truth  can  awaken  them,  no  force  of  argument  arouse  them.  He 
that  yields  his  understanding  to  the  guidance  of  Rome,  must  fre- 
quently meet  with  cases  in  which  the  information  of  his  faculties 
is  clear  and  unambiguous,  and  the  constitution  of  his  nature 
prompts  him  to  one  view,  while  the  infallible  authority  to  which 
he  has  submitted  requires  a  contrary  faith.  Hence,  if  he  be  con- 
sistent, he  must  follow  his  guide,  because,  according  to  the  terms 
of  the  hypothesis,  the  guide  is  infallible,  and  consequently,  dis- 
trust the  strongest  convictions  of  his  own  understanding.  If,  in 
such  clear  cases,  the  reason  of  men  deceives  them,  as  deceive 
them  it  must,  if  the  teacher  be  indeed  incapable  of  error,  how 
shall  it  ever  be  known  when  to  trust  their  faculties  at  all  ?  If 
they  must  reo-ard  that  light  which  contradicts  the  sentiments  of 
their  pretended  instructor,  as  a  temptation  of  the  devil,  designed 
in  the  providence  of  God  to  test  their  fidelity,  how  shall  they 
ever  be  able  to  distinguish  these  false  appearances  from  the  real 
illuminations  of  truth  ?  Is  it  not  evident  that  they  must  always 
be  children  in  understanding,  shrivelled  up  in  intellectual  dwarf- 
ishness  by  a  comfortless  Pyrrhonism — ever  learning  and  never 
able  to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth? 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that,  by  pretending  to  infallibility,  Rome 
occupies  the  same  position  in  regard  to  religion,  which  Hume 
maintained  in  relation  to  philosophy.*     She  is  a  skeptical  dog- 

*  *'  Our  knowledge  rests  ultimately  on  certain  facts  of  consciousness,  which 
as  primitive,  and  consequently  incomprehensible,  are  given  less  in  the  form  of 
cognitions  than  of  beliefs.  But  if  consciousness  in  its  last  analysis — in  other 
words,  if  our  primary  experience  be  a  faith,  the  reality  of  our  knowledge  turns 
on  the  veracity  of  our  generative  beliefs.     As  ultimate,  the  quality  of  these  be- 


93  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

matist,  and  by  making  the  same  principles  conduce  to  contradic- 
tory results,  she  virtually  pronounces  truth  to  be  impossible,  and 
"  reduces  knowledge  to  zero."     The   doctrine  of  transubstanti- 

liefs  cannot  be  inferred  ;  their  truth,  however,  is  in  the  first  instance  to  be  pre- 
sumed. As  given  and  possessed,  they  must  stand  good  until  refuted  ;  neganti 
incumbit prohatio.  Intelligence  cannot  gratuitously  annihilate  itself;  nature  is 
not  to  be  assumed  to  work  in  vain  ;  nor  the  Author  of  nature  to  create  only  to 

deceive. 

^rijir]  6^  ovTTOTC  ira^irav  a-KoWvTai  rjvriva  rravrcg 

A.aoi  (prifjii^uvai,      Qsov  pv  ri  tffri  kui  avrrj. 

"  But  though  the  tmth  of  our  instinctive  faiths  must  originally  be  admitted, 
their  falsehood  may  subsequently  be  established  :  this,  however,  only  through 
themselves — only  on  the  ground  of  their  reciprocal  contradiction.  Is  this  con- 
tradiction proved,  the  edifice  of  our  knowledge  is  undermined  ;  for  '  720  lie  is  of 
the  truth.' 

"  Consciousness  is  to  the  philosopher  what  the  Bible  is  to  the  theologian. 
Both  are  professedly  revelations  of  Divine  truth  ;  both  exclusively  supply  the 
constitutive  elements  of  knowledge,  and  the  regulative  standard  of  its  construc- 
tion. Each  may  be  disproved,  but  disproved  only  by  itself.  If  one  or  other 
reveal  facts,  which,  as  mutually  repugnant,  cannot  but  be  false,  the  authenticity 
of  that  revelation  is  invalidated  ;  and  the  criticism  which  signalizes  this  self- 
refutation,  has,  in  either  case,  been  able  to  convert  assurance  into  skepticism — 
*  to  turn  the  tnith  of  God  into  a  lie,' — 

Et  violare  fidem  primam,  et  convellere  tota 
Fundamenta  quibus  nixatur  vita  salusque. — Lucret. 

"  As  psychology  is  only  a  developed  consciousness,  the  positive  pliilosopher  has 
thus  a  prunary  presumption  in  favor  of  the  elements  out  of  which  his  system  is 
constructed  ;  while  the  skeptic,  or  negative  philosopher,  must  be  content  to  argue 
back  to  the  falsehood  of  those  elements,  from  the  impossibility  which  the  dog- 
matist may  experience,  in  combining  them  into  the  harmony  of  truth.  For 
truth  is  one  ;  and  the  end  of  philosophy  is  the  intuition  of  unity.  Skepticism  is 
not  an  original  or  independent  method  ;  it  is  the  coiTelative  and  consequent  of 
dogmatism  ;  and  so  far  from  being  an  enemy  to  truth,  it  arises  only  from  a  false 
philosophy,  as  its  indication  and  its  cure.  Alte  dubitat  qui  altius  credit.  The 
skeptic  must  not  himself  establish,  but  from  the  dogmatist  accept  his  principles  ; 
and  his  conclusion  is  only  a  reduction  of  philosophy  to  zero,  on  the  hypothesis 
of  the  doctrine  from  which  his  premises  are  borrowed.  Are  the  principles 
which  a  peculiar  system  involves,  convicted  of  contradiction  ;  or,  are  these 
principles  proved  repugnant  to  others,  which,  as  facts  of  consciousness,  every 
positive  philosophy  must  admit  ;  then  is  established  a  relative  skepticism,  or  xhe 
conclusion,  that  philosophy,  so  far  as  realized  in  this  system,  is  groundless. 
Again,  are  the  principles,  which,  as  facts  of  consciousness,  philosophy  in  gen- 
eral must  comprehend,  found  exclusive  of  each  other  ;  there  is  established  an 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  1)3 

ation,  for  instance,  cannot  be  admitted  without  involving  in  un- 
certainty the  information  of  our  senses,  and  rendering  doubtful 
the  only  evidence  upon  which  all  our  conceptions  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  matter  must  ultimately  depend.  Upon  the  authority  of 
Rome  we  are  required  to  believe,  that  what  our  senses  pronounce 
to  be  bread — that  what  the  minutest  analysis  which  chemistry 
can  institute  is  able  to  resolve  into  nothing  but  the  constituent 
elements  of  bread,  what  every  sense  pronounces  to  be  material — 
is  yet  the  incarnate  Son  of  God  ;  soul,  body,  and  Divinity,  full 
and  entire,  perfect  and  complete.  Here  Rome  and  the  senses 
are  evidently  at  war  ;  and  here  that  infallible  Church  is  made  to 
despise  one  of  the  original  principles  of  belief  which  God  has 
impressed  on  the  constitution  of  the  mind.  If,  in  reference  to 
the  magical  wafer,  which  the  juggling  incantations  of  a  Priest 
have  transformed  into  the  person  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
our  senses  cannot  be  regarded  as  worthy  of  our  confidence,  how 
are  we  to  know  when  to  trust  them  at  all?  Why  may  not  all 
our  impressions  of  color,  of  touch,  and  of  taste,  be  just  as  delu- 
sive as  those  which  deceive  us  in  reference  to  this  bread  ?  There 
can  be  no  other  evidence  of  any  sensible  phenomena  than  is 
possessed  of  the  fact  that  the  wafer  is  bread;   and  if  this  evi- 

absolute  skepticls?n  ; — the  impossibility  of  all  philosophy  is  involved  in  the  ne- 
gation of  the  one  criterion  of  truth.  Our  statement  may  be  reduced  to  a  dilem- 
ma. Either  the  facts  of  consciousness  can  be  reconciled,  or  they  cannot.  If 
fhey  cannot,  knowledge  absolutely  is  impossible,  and  every  system  of  philosophy 
therefore  false.  If  they  can,  no  system  which  supposes  their  inconsistency  can 
pretend  to  truth.  As  a  legitimate  skeptic,  Hume  could  not  assail  the  founda- 
tions of  knowledge  in  themselves.  His  reasoning  is  from  their  subsequent  con- 
tradiction to  their  original  falsehood  ;  and  his  premises,  not  established  by  him- 
self, are  accepted  only  as  principles  universally  conceded  in  the  previous  schools 
of  philosophy.  On  the  assumption,  that  what  was  thus  unanimously  admitted 
by  philosophers,  must  be  admitted  of  philosophy  itself,  his  argument  against  the 
certainty  of  knowledge  was  triumphant.  Philosophers  agreed  in  rejecting  cer- 
tain primitive  beliefs  of  consciousness  as  false,  and  in  usurping  others  as  true. 
If  consciousness,  however,  were  confessed  to  yield  a  lying  evidence  in  one  par- 
ticular, it  could  not  be  adduced  as  a  creditable  witness  at  all ; — falsus  in  uno, 
talsus  in  omnibus.  But  as  the  reality  of  our  knowledge  necessarily  rests  on 
the  assumed  veracity  of  consciousness,  it  thus  rests  on  an  assumption  implicitly- 
admitted  by  all  systems  of  philosophy  to  be  legitimate. 

"  Faciunt,  nae,  intelligendo,  ut  nihil  intelligant." — Edinburgh  Beview,yo\. 
li.  pp.  196,7. 


94  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

dence  is  fallacious  and  uncertain,  the  existence  of  matter  may 
be  a  chimeraj  or  the  speculation  of  Spinoza  may  not  be  unsound, 
that  only  one  substance  obtains  in  the  universe,  and  that  sub- 
stance is  God.  If  Rome  is  to  be  believed,  in  opposition  to  the 
senses,  the  paramount  authority  of  our  primary  convictions  is  at 
once  overthrown  ;  the  constitution  of  our  nature  is  rendered  sub- 
ject to  suspicion ;  the  measures  of  truth  are  involved  in  per- 
plexity, and  man  is  set  afloat  upon  the  boundless  sea  of  specula- 
tion, without  chart,  compass,  or  rudder.  The  standard  by  which 
opinions  must  be  ultimately  tried,  is  called  into  question,  and 
the  only  thing  which  can  be  regarded  as  absolutely  certain,  is 
the  utter  uncertainty  of  every  thing  on  earth.  It  is  intuitively 
clear,  that  if  our  faculties  cannot  be  trusted  in  one  case  which 
falls  within  the  sphere  of  their  legitimate  jurisdiction,  they  can- 
not be  trusted  in  another.  If  they  cannot  be  credited  when, 
with  every  mark  of  truth,  they  inform  us  of  physical  phenomena, 
they  can  no  more  be  credited  when  they  inform  us  of  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Church  ;  if  our  prim  art/  convictions  are  doubtful, 
all  other  impressions  must  be  delusive  and  deceitful.  So  far  as 
we  are  able  to  ascertain,  one  thing,  under  such  circumstances, 
is  just  as  true  as  another;  the  sophist  is  the  only  philosopher; 
skepticism  the  only  form  of  wisdom. 

In  conformity  with  what  reason  would  lead  us  to  expect,  we 
find,  from  actual  experience,  that  in  papal  countries,  where  the 
infallibility  of  the  Church  is  maintained  without  limitation  or 
reserve,  the  intelligent  members  of  the  community  have  no  real 
belief  in  any  of  the  distinctive  doctrines  of  religion.  Hence,  too, 
the  chair  of  St.  Peter  has  been  so  frequently  filled  by  those  who 
despised  every  principle  embraced  in  the  noble  confession  of  that 
distinguished  Apostle.  Leo  X.,  John  XXIII.,  and  Clement 
VII.,  Cardinal  Bembo,  Ficinus,  Politian,  Pomponatius,  Portius, 
Aretin,  and  a  host  of  others,  distinguished  alike  by  their  offices 
and  attainments,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  papal  dominions,  are 
as  renowned  in  the  annals  of  atheism,  as  in  the  history  of  reli- 
gious hypocrisy. 

The  schoolmen,  indeed,  did  not  hesitate  to  maintain  the 
assertion  that  opinions  might  be  philosophically  true,  and  yet 
theologically  false,  or  theologically  true,  and  at  the  same  time 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  95 

philosophically  false.*  In  other  words,  they  maintained  that 
truth  might  consist  with  open  contradictions,  which  is  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  its  existence  was  impossible,  or,  at  least,  in- 
conceivable. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  speculations  of 
the  schoolmen  prepared  the  way  for  the  extensive  desolations  of 
what  has  been  called  philosophical  infidelityt  in  modern  times, 

*  "  The  subtle  doctors  of  the  schools  not  only  explained  the  mysteries  of  re- 
ligion in  a  manner  conformable  to  the  principles  of  their  presumptuous  logic,  and 
modified  them  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  imperfect  reason,  but  also  pro- 
pagated the  most  impious  sentiments  and  tenets  concerning  the  Supreme  Being, 
the  material  world,  the  origin  of  the  universe,  and  the  nature  of  the  soul.  And 
when  it  was  objected  to  these  sentiments  and  tenets  that  they  were  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  genius  of  Christianity  and  to  the  express  doctrines  of 
Scripture,  these  scholastic  quibblers  had  recourse  for  a  reply,  or  rather,  for  a 
method  of  escape,  to  that  perfidious  distinction  which  has  frequently  been  em- 
ployed by  modem  deists,  that  these  tenets  were  philosophically  true  and  con- 
formable to  right  reason,  but  that  they  were  indeed  theologically  false  and  con- 
trary to  the  orthodox  faith." — Mosh.  Cent.  13,  pt.  ii.c.  3. 

t  Many  valuable  hints  concerning  the  connection  betwixt  the  scholastic  phi- 
losophy, and  the  skepticism  by  which  it  was  rapidly  succeeded,  may  be  found 
in  Ogilvie's  Inquiry  into  the  causes  of  infidelity  and  skepticism.  The  seed  was 
evidently  planted  by  the  schoolmen  of  the  middle  ages,  which  subsequently 
bore  such  bitter  fruit ;  they  encouraged  the  spirit  of  captious  dialectics,  that 
absurd  inattention  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  belief  as  the  basis  of  philosophy, 
which,  in  other  hands,  v/as  to  subvert  the  foundations  of  all  that  was  fair, 
venerable,  or  sacred.  The  reader  may  be  pleased  with  the  following  extract 
from  a  learned  and  valuable  work  : 

"  Imo,  unde  scholastici  suas  quodlibeticas  et  frivolas  questiones,  nisi  ex  hac 
scepticismi  lacuna,  haue-crunt.  Hoc  bene  notavit  .Tansenius  {August,  tom.  ii. 
proem,  lib.  cap.  28).  Scholastici,  inquit,  nimio  philosophiae  amore  quasi  ebrii, 
arcana  ilia  mysteria  gratia  sepulta,  deletaque  secundum  humanae  rationis  reg- 
ulas  eruere,  penetrare,  formare,  judicare,  voluerant.  Hinc  ille  ardor  de  quolibet 
disputandi,  quidlibet  eorum  in  dubium  revocandi.  Hinc  eorum  theologia  innu- 
merabilium  opinionum  farragine  referta  est,  per  quas  fere  omnia,  quantum- 
cunque  contraria,  facta  sunt  probabilia  ;  quae  secundum  eorum  pronuntiafa, 
cuilibet  tueri  licet.  Ita  vix  quicquam  certi,  praeter  fideni,  formandarum  opin- 
ionum novarum  promptitudo  reliquum  fecit.  Pracipitii  enim  poena,  suspen- 
dium  ci:o')^r)  hoc  est,  temeritatis  omsis  hesitantia  et  incertitudo.  Nihil  enim 
naturalius  et  vicinius  quam  ut  homines  ex  Peripateticis  fiant  Academic!,  quo- 
rum illi,  sublucente  ratiuncula,sententiam  extemplo  precipitant ;  hi,  temeritatis 
ducti,  poenitentia,  semper  hesitant  ;  et  nunc  hoc,  nunc  illud,  animo  fluctuante, 
displicit,  placet ;  unde  fit  ut  quod  eis  hodie  probabile  est,  eras  falsum  judicetur." 
— Galai  Philos.  General,  par.  ii.  lib.  i.  c.  4. 


96  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  just  as  little  doubt  that  the  violence  which  is  offered  by  the 
creed  of  Rome  to  the  original  principles  of  human  belief,  intro- 
duced the  schoolmen  into  those  curious  refinements  of  perverse 
dialects,  which  effectually  destroyed  the  unity  of  truth,  but  with- 
out which  they  were  compelled  to  abandon  the  infallible  dicta  of 
an  arrogant  community.  Modern  infidelity,  in  all  its  forms,  is 
much  more  intimately  connected  with  the  influence  of  the  papacy 
than  seems  to  be  generally  apprehended.  From  the  very  nature 
of  the  case.  Popery  must  be  the  parent  of  skepticism — and  the 
dogmas  of  Rome  cannot  be  admitted  without  making  a  double 
standard  of  truth,  and  destroying  all  its  consistency  and  har- 
mony. Those,  however,  who  are  not  prepared  for  the  dreary 
shades  of  unmitigated  skepticism,  will  much  prefer  the  legiti- 
mate conclusions  of  their  own  understanding,  to  the  wretched 
tattle  of  the  papal  Priesthood.  Fully  assured  that  a  standard  of 
truth,  in  reality,  exists,  uniform  and  stable,  they  can  never  be- 
lieve that  God  has  subjected  their  minds  to  the  control  of  men 
who  can  deliberately  trifle  with  the  constitution  of  their  nature, 
and  make  its  inherent  propensities  and  instinctive  faith  a  matter 
of  mockery.  The  very  fact  that  these  miserable  guides  contra- 
dict the  universal  bias  of  mankind,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  they 
are  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  and  that  instead  of  having  a  com- 
mission from  heaven,  they  derive  their  claims  from  the  father  of 
lies.  God  Himself,  in  His  acknowledged  revelations,  appeals 
to  the  authority  of  our  primary  convictions.  The  miracles  of 
Jesus  Christ  were  addressed  to  the  senses — to  human  eyes  and 
human  ears — and  in  all  His  expostulations  with  the  Jews,  our 
Saviour  evidently  assumes  the  absolute  certainty  of  sense  and 
consciousness — the  ultimate  sources  of  all  human  knowledge,  as 
well  as  the  irresistible  authority  of  those  original  principles  which 
constitute  the  tests  of  truth.  We  cannot  conceive,  indeed,  that 
a  Divine  revelation  could  be  possibly  authenticated  without  as- 
suming the  credibility  of  our  faculties.  To  shake  our  confidence 
in  them  is  to  render  belief  impossible,  no  matter  what  may  be 
the  subject  proposed,  or  the  evidence  submitted.  It  is  idle,  in 
fact,  to  talk  of  evidence,  which  is  only  the  light  in  which  the 
mind  perceives  the  reality  of  truth,  if  all  our  perceptions  are  to 
be  called  into  question,  or  involved  in  uncertainty.     Any  pre- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND     REFUTED.  97 

tended  teacher,  therefore,  who  does  not  authentieate  his  claims 
to  Divine  authority  by  performing  miracles,  which  none  could 
achieve  unless  God  were  with  him  ;  any  teacher  who  belies  his- 
pretensions  by  opening  his  mouth  in  what  every  law  of  our  nature 
requires  us  to  denounce  as  falsehood,  must  be  regarded  as  a 
child  of  darkness,  the  enemy  of  light,  and  the  foe  of  man.  No 
divine  revelation  can  be  more  certain  than  the  testimony  of 
sense,  or  the  evidence  of  consciousness.  Through  one  of  these 
sources  every  idea  must  be  conveyed  to  the  mind — and  whatever 
teacher  undertakes  to  set  them  aside,  is  the  father  of  skepticism, 
and  requires  of  man  a  homage,  which  though  he  may  profess  to 
render,  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  pay.  If  the  evidence  that  such 
a  teacher  were  really  sent  from  God,  was  equal  to  the  evidence 
of  sense  or  consciousness,  the  mind  would  then  be  involved  in 
that  state  of  contradiction  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  form  an 
opinion — the  teacher  and  our  nature,  like  two  negatives  in  Eng- 
lish, would  destroy  each  other,  and  our  real  faith  would  be  ex- 
pressed by  a  cipher.  The  mind,  in  other  words,  would  be  a 
perfect  blank — a  stagnant  pool  of  ignorance  and  doubt — a  mere 
chaos  of  discordant  elements — the  sport  of  endless  confusion  and 
caprice.  It  is  vain  to  pretend  that  we  honor  God,  in  cordially 
receiving  what  the  constitution  of  our  nature  prompts  us  to 
reject — that  the  merit  of  the  faith  is  enhanced  by  the  difficulties 
which  we  struggle  to  subdue.  When  these  difficulties  arise 
from  perverse  dispositions,  from  stubborn  prejudices,  impetuous 
passions,  or  pride  of  understanding,  there  may  be  some  founda- 
tion for  the  plea — but  when  they  lie  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
evidence,  he  that  commends  his  faith  on  such  oround,  glories  in 
the  fact  that  his  assent  is  strong  just  in  proportion  as  the  evi- 
dence is  weak,  and  amounts  to  absolute  certainty  when,  upon  the 
most  favorable  hypothesis  that  can  be  made  in  the  case,  there  is, 
in  truth,  no  evidence  at  all.  The  papist,  for  instance,  may 
regard  it  as  a  wonderful  triumph  of  devout  respect  for  the  author- 
ity of  God,  that  he  really  believes  that  bread  and  wine  are  trans- 
formed into  the  person  of  his  glorious  Redeemer,  the  accidents 
of  bread  and  wine  remaining  still  unchanged.*     But  then  it  is 

*  Trent  inichcs  that  hv  thf  consecratioji  of  (lie  bread  and  wine  the  whole 


9S  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

impossible  that  the  evidence  in  favor  of  this  supposition  can  ever 
be   stroncrer  than   the  evidence  against  it.     Let  us  grant  that  it 
may  be  equal.     What,  then,  is  the  real  state  of  the  case?     God, 
in  the  constitution  of  our  nature,  requires  us  to  believe  the  reality 
of  the  bread;  through  an  infallible  Church   He  requires  us  to 
believe  the  nature   of  the  change.     We  are  just  as  certain  that 
He  speaks  through  the  essential  constitution  of  the  human  mind, 
«s  throucfh  a  general  Council  of  the  Roman  Church.     To  say, 
therefore,  that  we  honor  Him  by  despising  our  nature,  and  being 
absolutely  certain  that   the  Church   is  right,  is  just  to   say  that 
when  the  evidence  is  precisely  on  a  poise,  it  is  insulting  to  God 
not  to  disreo"ard  His  first  revelation  through  the  reason  of  man. 
Transubstantiation  is   not  a  mystery,   but  an  absurdity — not  a 
difficulty,  but  a  contradiction — not  something  which  transcends 
the  lecritimate  province  of  reason,  but  a  fact  which  is  repugnant 
to  every  principle  of  human  belief — a  fact  which  no  man  can 
receive  without  denying  the  paramount   authority  of  those  ele- 
mentary truths  which  are   implanted  in  our  nature,  as  the  germ 
of  all  subsequent  knowledge  and  philosophy — and  without  which 
even  the  infallibility  of  a  teacher  cannot  possibly   be  proved. 
Rome,  then,   in  proposing  this   dogma  as  an  article  of  faith,  is 
the  patron  of  skepticism,  and  undermines  the  very  foundation  on 
which  alone  she  can  rest  her  authority  to  dictate  at  all.  In  requir- 
ing us  to  believe  this  monstrous  absurdity,  she  is   guilty  of  the 
equally  stupendous  folly  of  requiring  us   to  believe,  and  at  the 
same  time  deny,  the  certainty  of  sense  as  a  means  of  information 
— to  believe  the  certainty  of  sense,  in  order   to   substantiate  the 
infallibility  of  the  Church,    which  ultimately  rests  on   the  divine 
commission  of  Christ,  as  established  by  miracles  addressed  to  the 
senses,  and  acknowledged  by  them  to  be   indisputable  facts — to 

substance  of  the  bread  is  converted  into  the  substance  of  the  body  of  Christ 
our  Lord,  and  the  whole  substance  of  the  wine,  into  the  substance  of  his  blood 
(Sess.  XIII.  chap.  4)  ;  that  Christ,  whole  and  entire,  exists  under  the  species  of 
bread,  and  in  every  particle  thereof,  and  under  the  species  of  wine  and  in  all 
its  parts  (Ibid.  c.  3).  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  true  God  and  man,  says  the 
Council  in  chap.  1,  is  truly,  reallv,  and  substantially  contained  in  the  pure 
sacrament  of  the  holy  Eucharist,  after  the  consecration  of  the  bread  and  wine, 
and  under  the  species  ©f  those  sensible  objects. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  99 

deny  the   certainty  of  sense  in  order  to  sustain  the   enormous 
figment  that  all  the  sensible  properties  of  the  bread  can  remain 
unchanged   after   its  substance   has   been  physically  transmuted 
into  the   complex  person  of  the  Divine  Redeemer.     How  such 
egregious  trifling  with  the  intellectual  nature  of  mankind  differs 
from  the  false  philosophy  of  Hume,  in  its  legitimate  effects  and 
inevitable  tendencies,  I  leave  to  be  determined  by  those  who  are 
fond  of  a  riddle  or  tickled  with  a  paradox.     It  is  enough  for  me 
to  know  that  no  one  can  consistently  be  a  papist  without  ceasing 
to  be  a  man,  nor  subscribe  to  the  infallible  dogmas  of  that  apos- 
tate community,  without  virtually  inculcating  that  truth  is  a  fic- 
tion, and  evidence   "  of  all  our  vanities,  the  motliest,  the  merest 
word  that  ever  fooled  the  ear  from  out  the  schoolman's  jargon." 
The  history  of  Greek  philosophy  and  the  controversies  on  the 
subject  of  transubstantiation  reveal  a  remarkable  coincidence  be- 
twixt the  ancient  skeptics  of  Greece  and  the  modern  doctors  of 
Rome  :  they  are  alike  in  the  principles  with  which  they  set  out, 
and  remarkably  alike  in  the  positive  but  inconsistent  dogmatism 
upon  the  most  solemn   and   important  subjects,   with  which  they 
professed  to  terminate  their  inquiries.     The  distinctive  features 
of  the  school  of  Pyrrho  may  be  accurately  ascertained  from  his 
division  of  philosophy,  and  the  answers  which  he  gives  to  those 
great  questions  which  naturally  arise  from  his  distribution  of  the 
subject.      "  Whoever,"  says  the   founder  of  this  ill-omened  sect, 
"  whoever  would  live  happily  ought  to  look  to  three  things  ;  first, 
how  things   are  in  themselves  ;  secondly,   in  what  relation  man 
stands   to  them  ;   and  lastly,   what  will  be  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  such   relations."      The  followers  of  this  blind  and  in- 
fatuated  guide  called  into  question   the  veracity  of  the  senses, 
and   endeavored  to  show  that  there  was  no  unalterable  standard 
of  truth  in  conformity  with  which  our  judgments  should  be  formed. 
They  regarded  mankind  as  walking  literally  in  a  vain  show,  and 
pronounced  it  to  be  impossible  to  ascribe  with  certainty  any  real 
existence  to  the  objects  which  surround  us.     Hence  they  recom- 
mended a  suspension  of  judgment — an  entire  absence  from   all 
positive  assertion,  as  the  dictate  of  wisdom.     Their  propositions 
were  to  be  thrown  into  the  form  of  questions,  not  that  the  an- 
swers could  ever  be   determined,  but  that  the   uncertainty  of 


100  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

knowledge  might  be  clearly  indicated,  and  the  vacancy  of  the 
mind  distinctly  acknowledged.  This  fluctuating  state  of  opin- 
ion, or  rather  this  abstinence  from  any  thing  sufficiently  positive 
to  be  called  opinion,  was  regarded  by  the  skeptics  as  the  true 
method  of  securing  felicity.  To  embrace  skepticism  was  to  em- 
brace a  life  of  tranquillity,  in  which  the  indifference  of  the  mind 
to  truth  and  falsehood  happily  responded  to  the  uncertainty  of 
things — and  as  nothing  was  allowed  to  be  real,  the  anxieties  of 
hope,  the  perturbations  of  fear,  and  all  the  inquietude  of  pas- 
sion, were  suppressed  by  the  removal  of  the  causes  which  pro- 
duce them.  This  was  the  theory,  but  the  rules  of  life  which 
these  philosophers  prescribed,  (and  in  this  matter  with  a  strange 
inconsistency  they  were  dogmatical  and  positive,)  were  com- 
pletely at  war  with  their  speculative  doctrines.  They  recom- 
mended a  moderation  of  desire  which  evidently  implied  that 
there  were  real  causes  in  existence  to  disturb  the  equanimity  of 
the  soul — and,  like  the  Romanists,  while  in  one  breath  they  re- 
jected the  authority  of  the  senses,  in  the  very  next  they  assumed 
their  information  as  the  basis  of  practical  wisdom. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  the  progress  of  opinion,  the 
skeptics  introduced  the  Epicureans.  The  true  tendency  of 
Pyrrhonism  is  to  destroy  all  interest  in  human  affairs — to  bring 
about  a  state  of  complete  indifference — to  shroud  the  mind  in  a 
listless  apathy — to  produce  an  intellectual  swoon,  in  which, 
though  the  powers  exist,  their  exercise  is  entirely  suspended. 
To  confound  the  distinctions  of  truth  and  falsehood,  to  render 
knowledge  impossible  or  certainty  absurd,  is  to  divest  the  mind 
of  all  motive  to  exertion  and  remove  from  character  the  stability 
of  principle.  The  investigation  of  truth  is  the  proper  employ- 
ment of  the  human  understanding — the  possession  of  truth  con- 
stitutes its  wealth — the  love  of  truth  its  glory — and  sympathy 
with  truth  its  health  and  vigor.  A  greater  curse  cannot,  conse- 
quently, be  inflicted  on  the  race  than  to  repress  the  mind  in  its 
noble  aspirations  by  pronouncing  its  pursuits  to  be  vain  and  nu- 
gatory. Society  could  not  exist — every  faculty  of  the  soul 
would  wither,  and  pine,  and  die,  unless  something  were  admit- 
ted— something  cherished  and  loved.  To  deny  that  there  are 
any  principles  in   any   department  of  human  inquiry  on  which 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    RKFUTED.  101 

we  may  repose  with  confidence  and  safety,  is  to  reduce  man  to 
a  condition  of  torpor  which  nature  cannot  and  will  not  tolerate. 
The  activity  of  the  soul  must  be  exerted,  and  if  debarred  from 
the  generous  pursuit  of  truth,  it  will  vent  its  inclinations  in  law- 
less pleasure,  and  gratify  its  lusts  with  unrestrained  licentious- 
ness. The  sophists  are  the  natural  precursors  of  atheists  and 
libertines.  It  was  so  in  Greece — it  was  so  in  the  middle  ages — 
it  is  still  so  where  the  Roman  hierarchy  is  unchecked  in  its  in- 
fluence by  the  warning  and  example  of  Protestant  teachers. 
The  reality  of  the  passions,  of  pride,  ambition,  avarice  and  re- 
venge, is  a  matter  of  feeling  which  the  refinements  of  skepticism 
are  unable  to  dissipate.  These  will  exert  unlimited  sway  where 
the  sacred  majesty  of  truth  has  been  disrobed  of  its  power — these 
will  remain  as  certainties  when  all  other  things  are  involved  in 
doubt ;  and  skepticism  can  do  no  more,  from  the  very  nature  of 
man,  than  to  remove  the  checks  from  appetite  and  lust,  and  give 
the  reins  to  the  indulgence  of  desire.  In  charging,  therefore, 
the  Church  of  Rome  with  embracing  the  fundamental  principles 
of  skepticism,  I  bring  an  awful  accusation  against  her.  She 
disturbs  the  foundations  of  society — she  sanctions  principles 
which,  if  legitimately  carried  out,  would  obliterate  all  science, 
all  morality,  all  regulated  freedom,  and  all  religion.  Instead  of 
being  the  representative  of  Christ,  who  came  to  bear  witness  to 
the  truth,  she  stands  on  the  same  platform  with  Pyrrhonists,  So- 
phists, Atheists  and  Epicureans.  Hence  we  should  not  be  sur- 
prised that  Rome  is  now  and  ever  has  been,  in  every  period  of 
her  history,  the  mortal  enemy  of  free  discussion.  Those  who 
acknowledge  no  invariable  standard  of  truth  must  regard  inves- 
tigation as  idle  and  argument  as  vain.  And  Rome,  too,  is  just 
skeptic  enough  to  discard  all  sense  of  moral  obligation,  and  to 
gratify  her  characteristic  lusts,  ambition  and  avarice,  without  the 
annoyances  of  compunction  and  remorse.  These  passions,  like 
beasts  of  prey,  seek  the  cover  of  darkness  for  their  crimes — and 
the  history  of  the  past  affords  the  fullest  authority  for  saying  that 
Rome  has  found  it  convenient  to  envelope  truth  in  obscurity,  in 
order  tliat  she  might  promote  her  own  aggrandizement  without 
molestation  or  disturbance.  Nothing,  indeed,  can  more  strik- 
ingly illustrate  her  indifference  to  truth,  and   the  steady   zeal 


J  02  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

with  which  she  pursues  her  purposes  of  pride,  than  her  shameful 
policy  in  reference  to  books.  Her  expurgatory  and  prohibitory 
indexes  embrace  the  choicest  monuments  of  learning — her  sons 
are  debarred  from  holding  communion  with  the  master-spirits  of 
the  race,  to  whom  science,  philosophy,  and  liberty,  are  under  the 
deepest  obligations.  Among  the  works  which  to  this  day  are 
proscribed  by  the  proper  authorities  at  Rome  are  the  writings  of 
Bacon,  Milton,  and  Locke.  Even  the  more  liberal  of  her  own 
children,  who  have  had  the  audacity  to  prefer  candor  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  hierarchy,  have  been  rudely  enrolled  on  the  list  of 
proscription.  Dupin,  DeThou,  and  Fenelon,  stand  side  by  side 
with  Cave,  Robertson,  and  Bingham.  Rome  dreads  nothing  so 
much  as  liberty  of  thought.  Light  is  death  to  her  cause — and 
consequently  truth,  philosophy,  and  reason — the  book  of  God  and 
the  books  of  men  must  be  suppressed,  silenced,  and  condemned, 
lest  the  slumbers  of  the  people  should  be  broken — the  sun  of 
righteousness  arise — and  the  frauds  and  impostures  of  an  arro- 
gant community  exposed  to  the  gaze  of  day.  She  can  only 
flourish  among  a  nation  of  sophists,  among  a  people  who  have 
lost  the  love  of  truth,  and  seek  from  authority  what  ought  to  be 
sustained  by  evidence. 

To  the  papal  sect  we  are  also  indebted  for  the  first  restraints 
upon  the  freedom  of  the  press.*     Till  the  unhallowed  usurpa- 

*  "  The  first  instances  of  books  printed  with  Imprimaturs,  or  official  per- 
missions, are  two  printed  at  Cologne,  and  sanctioned  by  the  University  in  1479 
(one  of  them  a  Bible),  and  another  at  Heidelberg,  in  1480,  authorized  by  the 
Patriarch  of  Venice  ;  and  the  oldest  mandate  that  is  known  for  appointing  a 
Book-Censor  is  one  issued  by  Berthold,  Archbishop  of  Mentz,  in  the  year  1486, 
forbidding  persons  to  translate  any  books  out  of  the  Latin,  Greek,  or  other 
languages,  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  or,  when  translated,  to  sell  or  dispose  of 
them,  unless  admitted  to  be  sold  by  certain  doctors  and  masters  of  the  univer- 
sity of  Erfurt.  In  1501,  Pope  Alexander  VI.  published  a  Bull  prohibiting  any 
books  to  be  printed  without  the  approbation  of  the  Archbishops  of  Cologne, 
Mentz,  Tiers,  and  Magdeburg,  or  their  Vicars-General,  or  officials  in  spirituals, 
in  those  respective  provinces.  The  year  following,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
sovereigns  of  Spain,  publi-shed  a  royal  ordinance  charging  the  Presidents  of  the 
Chancellaries  of  Valladolid  and  Ciudad  Real,  and  the  Archbishops  of  Toledo, 
Seville,  and  Grenada,  and  the  Bishops  of  Burgos,  Salamanca,  and  Zamora,  with 
every  thing  relative  to  the  examination,  censure,  impression,  importation,  and 
sale  of  books.     In  the  Council  of  I/ateran,  held  under  Leo  X.,in  151.5,  it  was 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  103 

tions  of  Rome  had  devised  the  expedient  of  suppressing  thought 
by  preventing  its  propagation,  "  books,"  says  Milton,  "  were  ever 
as  freely  admitted  into  the  world  as  any  other  birth — the  issue  of 
the  brain  was  no  more  stifled  than  the  issue  of  the  womb  ;  no 
envious  Juno  sat  cross-legged  over  the  nativity  of  any  man's  in- 
tellectual offspring ;  but  if  it  proved  a  monster,  who  denies  but 
that  it  was  justly  burnt  or  sunk  into  the  sea?  But  that  a  book, 
in  worse  condition  than  a  peccant  soul,  should  be  to  stand  before 
a  jury  ere  it  be  born  to  the  world,  and  undergo,  yet  in  darkness, 
the  judgment  of  Rhadamanth  and  his  colleagues,  ere  it  can  pass 
the  ferry  backwards  into  light,  was  never  heard  before,  till  that 
mysterious  iniquity,  provoked  and  troubled  at  the  first  entrance 
of  reformation,    soughi  out  new  limbos    and  new  hells  wherein 

decreed  that  no  book  should  be  printed  at  Rome,  nor  in  other  cities  and  dio- 
ceses, unless,  if  at  Rome,  it  had  been  examined  by  the  Vicar  of  his  Holiness 
and  the  Master  of  the  Palace  ;  or,  if  elsewhere,  by  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese, 
or  a  doctor  appointed  by  him,  and  had  received  the  signature,  under  pain  of 
excommunication  and  burning  of  the  book." — Townlet/s  Essays  on  various 
subjects,  i^c. 

The  above  extract  has  been  taken  from  Mendham's  Literary  Policy  of  the 
Church  of  Rome — a  work  which  condenses  much  rare  and  valuable  informa- 
tion, illustrating  the  savage  ferocity  of  Popes  and  Councils  in  reference  to  the 
independent  productions  of  the  human  mind.  The  infamous  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Lateran  was  confirmed  by  Trent,  and  Rome  is  to-day  as  bigoted 
and  bitter,  as  much  the  enemy  of  light  and  knowledge,  as  she  was  three  hun- 
dred years  ago.  The  Encyclical  Letter  of  the  present  Pope,  dated  August  15, 
1832,  among  other  precious  maledictions  of  the  rights  of  man,  denounces  the 
"  fatal  and  detestable  liberty  of  publishing  whatever  one  chooses  " — (deterrima 
ilia  ac  nunquam  satis  execranda  et  detestabilis  libertas  artis  librariae  ad  scripta 
quaelibet  edenda  in  vulgus)  and  the  Letter  of  Cardinal  Barthelemi  Pacca,  dated 
August  16,  lt:32,  addressed  to  the  Abbe  de  Mennais,  which  may  be  regarded 
as  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the  Encyclical  Letter  itself,  condemns  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Avinci — a  periodical  publication  which  exerted  great  influence  at 
the  time,  in  reference  to  freedom  of  religion,  and  the  freedom  of  the  press.  Lib- 
eral sentiments  on  these  subjects  the  Cardinal  declares  to  be  highly  reprehen- 
sible, inconsistent  alike  with  the  doctrines,  the  maxhns,  and  the  practice  of  the 
Church.  In  July,  1834,  the  Pope  issued  another  infernal  bulletin  against  light, 
knowledge,  and  liberty,  occasioned  by  a  new  work  of  Mennais,  entitled  the 
Words  of  a  Believer.  This  document  far  surpasses,  in  the  violence  of  its  tyran- 
nical principles,  the  Encyclical  Letter  of  August  15.  These  facts  show  what 
Rome  now  is.  I  allude  to  them  now  incidentally,  as  I  shall  have  occasion 
hereafter  to  notice  them  more  fnllv. 


104  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

they  might   include  our  books  also  within   the  number  of  the 
damned." 

How  the  literary  policy  of  Rome  can  be  reconciled  with  any 
decent  regard  for  the  authority  of  truth  or  the  enlargement  of 
the  mind  it  is  impossible  to  discover.  If  truth  indeed  be  ''  strong 
next  to  the  Almighty,  she  needs  no  policies,  nor  stratagems,  nor 
licensings  to  make  her  victorious — these  are  the  shifts  and  de- 
fences that  error  uses  against  her  power."  It  is  the  owls  and  bats 
of  the  world  that  love  to  expatiate  in  darkness — the  eagle  gazes 
on  the  sun,  and  his  flight  is  as  lofty  as  his  vision  is  clear.  Truth 
rises  from  the  conflicts  of  discussion  noble  and  puissant — untar- 
nished by  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  collision,  she  shakes  her  in- 
vincible locks,  and,  like  a  strong  man,  refreshed  by  reason  of 
wine,  rejoices  to  run  her  race.  That  cause  which  is  propped  by 
prohibitions  and  anathemas — which  appoints  spiritual  midwives 
to  slay  the  man-children  born  into  the  world — which,  like  kings, 
is  stronger  in  legions  than  in  arguments,  bears  a  shrewd  pre- 
sumption on  its  face,  that  it  is  not  the  cause  of  the  Father  of 
lights. 

It  is  a  beautiful  arrangement  of  infinite  wisdom  that  they  who 
assert  so  stupendous  a  claim  as  that  of  infallibility,  without  the 
least  proof  of  Divine  authority,  should  yet  so  completely  stumble 
on  the  very  threshold  of  philosophy  as  to  make  their  stupidity 
much  more  remarkable  than  their  pretensions  to  knowledge.  It 
would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not  so  humiliating,  to  see  these  arro- 
gant empirics  swelling  with  pompous  promises  to  dispel  all  doubt, 
obscurity  and  confusion  from  the  doctrines  of  religion,  and  to 
establish  Christianity  upon  the  firm  basis  of  infallible  truth  ; 
while  the  words  have  scarcely  escaped  from  their  lips,  before 
they  contradict  every  principle  of  human  belief,  and  teach  us  to 
regard  all  certainty  and  evidence  as  mere  chimeras.  They  prom- 
ise to  give  us  infallible  assurance,  and  end  by  instructing  us  that 
such  a  thing  as  assurance  is  utterly  impossible.  Surely  they  are 
the  men,  and  wisdom  will  die  with  them ! — How  true  it  is  that 
the  wicked  are  ensnared  in  the  work  of  their  own  hands — how 
true  the  exclamation  of  the  poet : 

"  Oh  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave, 
When  first  we  practice  to  deceive." 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  105 

LETTER    VII. 

Papal  Infallibility  shown  to  be  conducive  to  licentiousness  and  immorality. 

Any  system  of  philosophy  or  religion  which  sanctions  the 
mutability  of  moral  distinctions,  or  introduces  a  fluctuating 
standard  of  duty,  is  fatal  to  the  highest  interests  of  man.  Truth 
and  virtue,  the  most  important  objects  of  sublunary  pursuit,  are 
alike  unchanging  and  eternal.  The  moral  and  intellectual  natures 
of  men  are  so  intimately  connected,  their  mutual  dependence  so 
nicely  adjusted,  their  action  and  reaction  so  perfect  and  complete, 
that  confusion  of  understanding  is  always  accompanied  with  cor- 
responding lubricity  of  principle,  and  he  whose  perceptions  of 
truth  are  not  remarkable  for  clearness  and  precision  will,  most 
surely,  be  distinguished  by  an  equal  obscurity  in  his  conceptions 
of  rectitude.  The  moral  duties  which  we  are  required  to  per- 
form are  first  contemplated  as  speculative  principles,  whose  truth 
must  be  submitted  to  the  decision  of  reason  before  they  can  be 
received  as  authoritative  laws  whose  precepts  we  are  bound  to 
obey.  The  truth  of  right  is  an  inquiry  necessarily  prior  in  the 
order  of  nature  to  the  obligation  of  right.  The  conviction  of 
the  understanding  must  Tilways  precede  the  sanction  of  con- 
science. Hence  those  philosophers  are  not  to  be  rashly  con- 
demned who  attribute  to  the  same  faculty  of  the  mind  the 
power  of  distinguishing  betwixt  right  and  wrong,  which,  it  is 
confessed,  distinguishes  betwixt  truth  and  falsehood.  The  men- 
tal processes  are  so  nearly  identical,  that  it  seems  to  be  an  unne- 
cessary multiplication  of  original  powers  to  have  a  peculiar  un- 
derstanding conversant  only  about  moral  truth,  while  another 
understanding  is  admitted  to  exist  which  deals  in  truth  of  every 
other  kind.  Oar  faculties,  which  are  only  convenient  names  for 
the  various  operations  of  a  simple  and  indivisible  substance,  de- 
rive their  appellations  not  from  the  specific  differences  of  the  ob- 
jects about  which  they  are  employed,  but  from  their  general 
nature.  The  discovery  of  truth  is  as  much  an  end  to  the  moral 
philosopher  who  is  seeking  to  determine  the  standard  of  duty,  and 
to  settle  what  ought  to  he,  as  well  as  what  is,  as  it  is  to  the  phy- 

6 


106  ROMANEST    ARGUMENTS    FOK    THK 

sical  inquirer  whose  investigations  cannot  be  legitimately  pushed 
beyond  the  province  of  existing  phenomena.  The  same  laws  of 
evidence,  the  same  original  principles,  the  same  elements  of 
human  belief,  and  the  same  process  of  patient  induction,  are,  or 
ought  to  be,  common  to  both,  and  can  no  more  be  discarded  with 
impunity  by  the  one  than  they  can  by  the  other.  Hence  -a 
variable  or  fluctuating  standard  of  truth  necessarily  introduces  a 
variable  and  fluctuating  standard  of  morals — whatever  system 
legitimates  error,  to  the  same  extent  legitimates  crime — whatever 
blinds  the  understanding,  corrupts  the  heart.  The  moral  nature 
is  always  involved  in  the  same  ruin  with  the  intellectual  consti- 
tution. Rude  and  barbarous  nations  are  as  much  indebted  to 
imbecility  of  reason,  superinduced  by  neglect  of  cultivation  or 
false  associations,  for  their  mistaken  apprehensions  of  good  and 
evil,  as  to  depravity  of  taste  or  perverseness  of  moral  sensibility. 
Their  deeds  of  darkness  are  performed  without  compunctious 
visitings  of  conscience,  not  because  that  messenger  of  God  slum- 
bers in  the  breast,  or  is  bribed  by  the  sinner  to  hold  its  peace, 
but  because  that  light  is  extino-uished,  without  which  it  is  im- 
possible  to  recognize  the  authority  of  law.  The  moral  affections 
can  no  more  expand  nor  take  root  downwards  and  bear  fruit  up- 
wards while  the  understanding — the  true  sun  of  the  intellectual 
system — is  veiled  in  darkness,  than  the  plants  and  herbage  of 
nature  can  flourish  in  beauty  and  luxuriance  without  the  genial 
light  of  the  day.  The  sense  of  obligation  is  always  just  in  pro- 
portion to  the  enlargement  of  the  mind  with  liberal  views  of  the 
relations  of  mankind  ;  and  although  the  knoivlcdge  of  the  right 
does  not  necessarily  secure  its  practice,  it  does  secure,  what  is  of 
vast  importance  to  society,  remorse  to  the  guilty,  and  a  homage 
of  respect  to  the  good.  He  that  acknowledges  a  legitimate 
standard  of  moral  obligation  will  find  in  his  conscience  a  check 
to  those  crimes,  which,  through  weakness,  he  is  unable  to  suppress 
— a  restraint  upon  those  passions,  which,  through  frailty,  cannot 
be  subdued.  The  transgressor  who  violates  rules  of  unques- 
tioned authority,  which  his  own  understanding  has  received  as 
right,  will  assuredly  drive  tranquillity  from  his  bosom  and  repose 
from  his  couch.  He  sins,  indeed,  but  without  that  moral  hardi- 
hood which  attaches  to  those  who,  in  their  blindness   and  igno- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    A^JD    REFUTED.  107 

ranee,  put  light  for  darkness,  and  bitter  for  sweet.  They  are 
the  most  dangerous  offenders  who  tamper  with  the  principles  of 
rectitude  itself,  who  seek  to  escape  the  reproaches  of  conscience 
by  degrading  the  standard  of  moral  obligation — who  pursue 
peace  at  the  expense  of  truth,  and  extinguish  the  light  that  they 
may  not  behold  the  calamity  of  their  state.  The  abandoned 
condition  of  the  Gentile  world,  which  the  Apostle  so  graphically 
describes  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  is 
ultimately  traced  to  the  vanity  of  their  thoughts,  and  the  dark- 
ness of  their  minds,  and  those  to  whom  the  gospel  is  hid,  have 
their  minds  *'  blinded  by  the  god  of  this  world,  lest  the  light  of 
the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ,  who  isrthe  image  of  God,  should 
shine  unto  them,"  and  "  reveal  the  glory  of  the  Lord  "  by  the 
contemplation  of  which  they  might  be  transformed  *'  into  the 
same  image  from  glory  to  glory."  The  love  of  speculative  truth, 
and  integrity  of  purpose,  are  graces  of  character  so  closely  affi- 
liated— they  are  so  evidently  the  offspring  of  the  same  general 
condition  of  the  mind,  that  he  who  aspires  to  the  praise  of  hon- 
esty, must  not  forget  the  necessity  of  candor,  and  he  who  would 
adorn  his  heart  with  the  highest  excellence  of  which  it  is  suscep- 
tible, must  enrich  his  understanding  with  corresponding  posses- 
sions. The  love  of  truth  is  honesty  of  reason,  as  the  love  of 
virtue  is  honesty  of  heart ;  and  so  impossible  is  it  to  cultivate  the 
moral  affections  at  the  expense  of  the  understanding,  that  they 
who  receive  not  the  truth  in  the  love  of  it,  are  threatened  in  the 
Scriptures  with  the  most  awful  malediction  that  can  befall  a 
sinner  in  his  sublunary  state  :  an  eclipse  of  the  soul  and  a  blight 
upon  the  heart,  which  are  the  certain  forerunners  of  the  second 
death.  There  is  hope  of  reformation  so  long  as  the  principles 
remain  uncorrupted,  but  when  the  light  which  is  in  us  is  con- 
verted into  darkness — when  lies  are  greedily  embraced  and 
errors  deliberately  justified,  the  climax  of  guilt  has  been  reached, 
the  ruin  of  the  character  is  complete,  and  the  perdition  of  the 
soul,  without  a  stupendous  miracle  of  grace,  seems  to  be  inevita- 
ble. Shame  and  remorse,  the  usual  channels  throuorh  which 
amendment  is  produced,  are  always  the  result  of  consciousness 
of  error — an   affection  which  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  that 


108  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

complete  degradation  of  the  mind  to  which  thousands  have  been 
sunk,  and  in  which  error  is  neither  lamented  nor  admitted. 

From  the  intimate  alliance  which  subsists  betwixt  the  stand- 
ard of  truth,  and  the  standard  of  morality,  it  follows  as  a  neces- 
sary consequence,  that  skepticism  is  fatal  to  the  interests  of 
virtue.  It  destroys  the  immutahility  of  moral  distinctions ;  makes 
duty  dependent  upon  circumstances  ;  or  rather,  denies  the  reality 
of  duty  apart  from  convictions  of  utility  or  pleasure.  He  who 
trifles  with  the  constitution  of  his  nature  in  those  primary  con- 
victions which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  knowledge  and  philo- 
sophy, is  cherishing  a  temper  w^hich  shall  soon  rise  in  rebellion 
against  the  authority  of  conscience,  and  extinguish  the  only  light 
that  can  convict  him  of  crime.  From  the  obscurity  and  con- 
fusion which  have  shrouded  the  understanding,  may  be  antici- 
pated a  deeper  gloom  which  is  soon  to  settle  on  the  heart.  Spec- 
ulation must  ultimately  end  in  practice,  and  if  the  w^aters  are 
poisoned  at  the  fountain,  death  must  be  expected  to  overspread 
the  land.  That  the  moral  conduct  of  skeptics  has  not  always 
been  answerable  to  the  looseness  of  their  principles,  is  not  to  be 
ascribed  to  a  redeeming  virtue  in  the  principles  themselves,  but 
to  the  restraints  of  society,  and  to  the  voice  of  nature,  which 
skepticism  had  not  been  able  to  suppress.  The  tendency  exists, 
though  accidental  hinderances  have  retarded  its  development. 
Doubts  about  tnith  and  evidence  will  conduct  to  doubts  about 
rectitude  and  sin;  and  he  who  shall  finally  conclude  that  truth 
is  unattainable,  must  be  a  fool  if  he  still  believes  that  virtue  is 
obligatory.  These  remarks,  though  they  appear  to  me  to  be 
intuitively  obvious,  are  felt  to  be  necessary  in  order  to  rebuke 
the  growing  impression  that  speculative  principles  have  no  imme- 
diate influence  in  regulating  conduct.  We  live  in  an  age  of 
sophists:  a  man  may  believe  anything  or  nothing;  and  yet  if 
his  actions  are  consistent  with  the  standard  of  public  decency, 
his  principles  are  not  to  be  condemned,  his  doctrines  not  to  be 
assailed.  If,  however,  there  exist  in  the  bosom  of  the  Almighty 
an  eternal  standard  of  truth,  from  which  the  law  of  righteousness 
proceeds,  in  conformity  with  w-hicb  the  arrangements  of  Provi- 
dence are  conducted,  the  relations  of  things  adjusted,  and  by 
which  alone  the  harmony  of  the  world  can  be  effectually  pro- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  109 

moted,  the  first  step  towards  communion  with  the  Father  of  lights 
is  to  recognize  that  standard.  The  mind  cannot  move  in  charity 
nor  rest  in  Providence,  unless  it  turn  upon  the  poles  of  truth. 
''The  inquiry  of  truth,"  says  Bacon,  *'  which  is  the  love-making 
or  wooing  of  it;  the  knowledge  of  truth,  which  is  the  presence  of 
it ;  and  the  belief  of  truth,  which  is  the  enjoying  of  it,  is  the 
sovereign  good  of  human  nature.  The  first  creature  of  God,  in 
the  work  of  the  days,  was  the  light  of  sense;  the  last  was  the 
light  of  reason;  and  His  Sabbath-work  ever  since,  is  the  illumi- 
nation of  His  Spirit." 

In  inculcating,  therefore,  a  spirit  of  skepticism,  and  denying 
a  permanent  standard  of  truth,  the  Church  of  Rome  impeaches 
the  immutability  of  moral  distinctions,  and  declares  herself  to 
be  a  child  of  the  devil,  and  an  enemy  of  all  righteousness.  She 
unsettles  the  foundations  of  right  and  wrong.  She  is  as  loose 
in  her  principles  as  she  is  corrupt  in  her  practices.  Consistently 
with  her  statements  on  the  subject  of  transubstantiation,  it  is 
impossible  to  establish  an  unchanging  standard  of  moral  obliga- 
tion ;  and  as  she  evidently  begins  in  Pyrrhonism,  she  must  neces- 
sarily end  in  Epicureanism,  The  enormous  corruptions  of  the 
clergy  which  provoked  the  indignation  of  Europe  at  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  ;  their  rapacity,  licentiousness,  and  lust,  were 
not  the  occasional  abuses  of  wicked  men,  foreign  to  the  system, 
and  abhorrent  to  the  principles  of  the  mass  of  the  church.  They 
were  the  legitimate,  natural,  necessary  results  of  that  spirit  of 
skepticism  which  Romanism  must  engender  among  all  who 
reflect  upon  the  foundations  of  knowledge  or  the  nature  of  evi- 
dence. They  wtxQ  i\ie  hitter  fruit  of  her  graceless  pretensions 
to  infallibility. 

As  the  priesthood  of  Rome,  in  their  mortal  opposition  to  the 
natural  measures  of  truth  and  certainty,  have  virtually  claimed 
to  be  the  arbiters  of  truth,  it  was  not  unreasonable  to  expect  that 
they  should  likewise  claim  to  be  lords  of  the  conscience,  and 
the  arbiters  of  duty.  Hence  we  find,  in  fact,  that  by  the  name 
and  pretended  authority  of  God,  they  have  instituted  a  standard 
of  morality  which  completely  sets  aside  the  eternal  principles  of 
rectitude,  and  makes  the  interests  of  the  papacy,  which  means 
nothing  more  than  the  wealth   and  power  of  the  hierarchy,  the 


110  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

supreme  object  of  pursuit.  That  is  right,  according  to  the  phi- 
losophy of  Rome,  which  enlarges  the  dominion  of  the  priests,  or 
increases  the  revenues  of  the  Pope.  Actions  take  their  moral 
complexion,  not  from  their  influence  on  the  relations  which  men 
sustain  to  society,  or  the  relations  in  which  they  stand  to  their 
God,  but  from  the  bearing  which  they  have  upon  the  temporal 
grandeur  of  the  Roman  See.  The  papists,  like  the  Scriptures, 
divide  mankind  into  two  great  classes;  but  the  righteous,  ac- 
cording to  Rome,  are  not  those  who  are  distinguished  by  works 
of  faith,  benevolence,  and  charity,  these  she  has  felt  it  her  special 
vocation  to  pursue,  in  every  corner  of  the  earth,  with  fire  and 
sword,  with  stripes  and  torture,  imprisonment  and  death.  Moral 
accomplishments  are  nothing,  in  her  eye,  as  she  acknowledges  no 
standard  of  duty,  which  does  not  award  to  her  the  sublime  posi- 
tion which  reason  and  the  Scriptures  accord  to  the  Almighty,  as 
centre  of  the  moral  system,  to  whom  are  all  things,  for  whom  are 
all  things,  and  by  whom  are  all  things.  Her  just  ones  may  be 
polluted  by  every  crime  which  humanity  can  perpetrate  ;  by  incest, 
adultery,  murder,  and  treason — they  may,  like  Hildebrande,  be 
firebrands  of  hell — like  John,  the  beastly  impersonations  of  lust ; 
yet  all  is  right — they  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the  excellent  ones 
in  whom  Rome  takes  delight,  if  they  prefer  her  interests  above 
their  chief  joy.  The  supremacy  of  homage  and  affection  which 
she  claims  for  herself,  places  her  on  the  throne  of  the  Eternal, 
and  regulates  the  standard  of  morality  according  to  the  measures 
which  are  best  adapted  to  promote  her  authority,  and  completely 
sets  aside  the  glory  of  God,  which  is  and  ought  to  be  the  chief 
end  of  man,  and  reverses  all  those  arrangements  of  infinite  wisdom 
by  which  the  harmony  of  the  universe  has  been  nicely  adjusted 
in  accordance  with  the  moral  laws,  which  spring  necessarily 
from  the  Divine  perfections.  He  that  makes  the  glory  of  God 
the  end  of  his  being,  and  the  perfections  of  God  his  standard  of 
rectitude,  is  certainly  in  unison  with  all  that  we  know  of  that 
vast  system  of  government,  embracing  the  universe,  and  com- 
passing eternity,  under  which  we  live.  But  such  grand  and 
magnificent  conceptions  of  duty,  the  views  of  the  Bible,  of  truth, 
and  of  nature,  find  no  encouragement  from  the  niggard  politicians 
of  Rome.     They  see  in  man  but  a  slave  for  their  lusts,  and  their 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  Ill 

whole  system  of  morality  is  a  sordid  calculation  of  interest — 
their  duties  are  feudal  services — and  the  solemn  sanctions  of 
relicrioji  are  only  introduced  to  give  currency  and  success  to 
their  nefarious  frauds.  Wealth  and  power  are  the  watchwords 
of  the  hierarchy.  The  visible  and  invisible  worlds  are  alike  the 
sources  of  their  merchandise ;  souls  are  their  spoils,  and  the 
patronage  of  sin  the  ultimate  issue  of  their  policy.  The  doc- 
trine of  indulgencies,  the  practice  of  auricular  confession,  the 
system  of  penances,  the  invention  of  purgatory,  and  the  detes- 
table principle  of  private  masses,  are  only  links  in  a  chain  of 
despotism,  by  which  Rome  binds  the  consciences  of  men,  in 
order  to  seize  the  possession  of  their  treasures.  The  whole 
scheme  of  papal  abominations  is  directed  with  unerring  saga- 
gacity  to  the  secular  aggrandizement  of  the  clergy.*    Every  doc- 

*  '•  What  can  we  think  of  redeeming  souls  out  of  purgatory,  or  preserving 
them  from  it  by  tricks,  or  some  mean  pageantry,  but  that  it  is  a  foul  piece  of 
merchandise  ?  What  is  to  be  said  of  implicit  obedience,  the  priestly  dominion 
over  consciences,  the  keeping  the  Scriptures  out  of  the  people's  hands  and  the 
worship  of  God  in  a  strange  tongue,  but  that  these  are  so  many  arts  to  hood- 
wink the  world,  and  to  deliver  it  up  into  the  hands  of  the  ambitious  clergy  ? 
What  can  we  think  of  superstition  and  idolatry  of  images,  and  all  the  other 
pomp  of  the  Roman  worship,  but  that  by  these  things,  the  people  were  to  be 
kept  up  in  a  gross  notion  of  religion,  as  a  splendid  business,  and  that  priests 
have  a  trick  of  saving  them,  if  they  will  but -take  care  to  humor  them,  and 
leave  that  matter  wholly  in  their  hands?  And  to  sum  up  all,  what  can  we 
think  of  that  constellation  of  prodigies  in  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  but  that 
it  is  an  art  to  bring  the  world  by  wholesale  to  renounce  their  reason  and  sense, 
and  to  have  a  most  wonderful  veneration  for  a  sort  of  men  who  can,  wiih  a 
word,  perform  the  most  astonishing  thing  that  ever  was." — Burnet^  Hist.  Rpf. 

"  Of  all  the  contrivances  to  enthral  mankind,  and  to  usurp  the  entire  com- 
mand of  them,  that  of  auricular  confession  appears  the  most  impudent  and  the 
most  effectual.  That  one  set  of  men  could  persuade  all  other  men  that  it  was 
their  duty  to  come  and  reveal  to  them  every  thing  which  they  had  done,  and 
every  thing  which  they  meant  to  do,  would  not  be  credible  if  it  were  not  proved 
by  the  fact.  This  circumstance  rendered  the  clergy  masters  of  the  secrets  of 
every  family  ;  it  rendered  them,  too,  the  universal  advisers  ;  when  any  person's 
intentions  were  laid  before  a  clergyman,  it  was  his  business  to  explain  what 
was  lawful  and  what  was  not,  and  under  this  pretext  to  give  what  counsel  he 
pleased.  In  this  manner  the  clergy  became  masters  of  the  whole  system 
of  human  life ;  the  two  objects  they  chieJJy  •pursued  were,  to  increase  the 
riches  of  the  order,  and  to  gratify  their  senses  and  pride.  By  using  all  their 
arts  to  cajole  the  great  and  wealthy,  and  attacking  them  in  moments  of  weak- 


112  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

trine  has  its  place  in  the  scale  of  profit — power  and  money  are 
the  grand  and  decisive  tests  of  truth  and  righteousness,  and 
every  principle  is  estimated  by  Rome  according  to  its  weight  in 
the  scales  of  ambition  and  avarice.  Expediency,  in  its  most 
enlar^red  acceptation,  is  a  dangerous  test  of  moral  obligation, 
but  when  restricted  to  the  contemptible  ends  which  the  papacy 
contemplates;  when  all  the  duties  of  mankind  are  measured  by 
the  interests,  the  secular  interests,  of  a  wicked  corporation,  we 
may  rest  assured  that  the  most  detestable  vices  will  pass  unre- 
buked,  monsters  of  iniquity  be  canonized  as  saints,  and  the  laws 
which  hold  the  universe  in  order  be  revoked  in  subservience  to 
the  paltry  purposes  of  sacerdotal  intolerance.  Rome  claims  the 
power  of  binding  the  conscience.  She  professes  to  wield  the 
authority  ofGod,  and  her  injunctions,  audacious  as  they  are,  she 
has  the  moral  effrontery  to  proclaim  in  the  name  of  the  Most 
High.  She  consequently  is,  at  once,  a  lawgiver  and  a  judge- 
Truth  is  what  she  declares,  and  righteousness  is  what  she 
approves.  Such  stupendous  claims  on  the  part  of  ignorant, 
errincr,  and  sinful  mortals  as  ourselves,  must  exert  a  disastrous 
influence  on  the  purity  of  morals,  and  sanctify  the  filthy  dreams 
of  men,  as  the  inspired  revelations  of  the  Father  of  truth.     It  is 

ness,  sickness,  and  at  the  hour  of  death,  they  obtained  great  and  numerous  be- 
quests to  the  Church  ;  by  abusing  the  opportunities  they  enjoyed  with  women, 
they  indulged  their  lusts  ;  and  by  the  direction  they  obtained  in  the  manage- 
ment of  every  family  and  every  event,  they  exercised  their  love  of  power,  when 
they  could  not  draw  an  accession  of  wealth." — Villevs  on  Reform. 

The  doctrine  of  private  masses  is  one  of  the  worst  corruptions  of  the  Rom- 
ish Church.  What  Rome  teaches  to  be  Jesus  Christ  is  actually  sold  in  the 
market — and  the  solemn  oblation  of  the  Son  of  God  is  professed  to  be  made 
for  dollars  and  cents.  We  have  masses  for  penitents,  masses  for  the  dead, 
masses  at  privileged  altars,  all  which  command  a  price  in  the  shambles  and 
increase  the  revenues  of  the  grasping  priesthood.  To  the  disgrace  of  the  hier- 
archy, it  deserves  to  be  mentioned,  that  they  frequently  received  large  sums  of 
money  for  masses,  which  they  never  had  the  honesty  to  say.  Llorente  tells  us 
of  a  Spanish  priest  who  had  been  paid  for  11,800  masses  which  he  never  said. 
We  are  informed  of  a  Church  in  Venice,  in  1743,  that  was  in  arrears  for  16,400 
mnssfs.  What  a  traffic  in  human  souls!  Cheated  of  their  money — cheated  of 
their  liberty — cheated  of  their  hopes — cheated  of  salvation — how  mournful  the 
condition  of  blinded,  infatuated  papists.  What  a  stupendous  system  for  accu- 
mulating power  and  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy  ! 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  113 

impossible,  under  such  circumstances,  but,  that  interest  should 
be  made  the  ultimate  standard  of  propriety,  and  the  whole  moral 
order  of  the  universe  involved  in  corresponding  confusion,  by 
making  that  which  ought  never  to  be  an  end,  the  supreme  object 
of  human  pursuit. 

The  moral  system  of  the  Jesuits,  as  developed  in  their  secret 
instructions  and  the  writings  of  their  celebrated  casuists,  breathes 
the  true  spirit  of  the  papacy.  These  men  are  the  sworn  subjects 
of  the  Roman  Pontiff:  to  promote  the  interests  of  their  sect  is 
the  single  purpose  of  their  lives;  and  their  code  of  morality  is 
based  upon  the  principles  which  support  the  foundation  of  the 
Papal  throne.  In  the  Jesuits,  consequently,  we  behold  the  le- 
gitimate effects  of  the  Papal  system — in  them  it  is  unrestrained 
by  the  voice  of  nature,  the  authority  of  conscience,  or  venera- 
tion for  God.  They  are  Pajn'sts — pure,  genuine,  unadulterated 
Papists;  they  have  endeavored  to  divest  themselves  of  every 
quality  which  is  not  in  unison  with  the  authority  of  Rome ;  they 
have  made  the  Pope  their  god  for  whom  they  live,  in  whom  they 
trust,  and  to  whom  they  have  surrendered  their  health  and 
strength  and  all  things.  It  is  only  in  them,  or  those  who  breathe 
a  kindred  spirit  with  themselves,  that  the  true  tendencies  of  Ro- 
manism have  ever  been  fully  developed.  Thousands  in  Rome 
have  not  been  able  to  be  fully  of  Rome,  and  the  influence  of 
Popery  has  been  secretly  modified  by  numberless  restraining 
circumstances  in  their  position,  relations,  and  condition  of 
society. 

To  take  the  doctrines  of  the  Jesuits  as  the  true  standard  of 
Papal  authority  cannot  be  censured  as  injustice  by  those  who 
consider  the  intimate  connection  which  subsists  between  licen- 
tiousness and  skepticism.  There  is  not  a  single  distinctive 
feature  of  Jesuitism  which  may  not  be  justified  by  the  necessary 
tendencies  of  the  acknowledged  principles  of  Rome.*  These 
men  have  embodied  the  spirit  of  the  Church  ;  they  have  digested 
its   doctrines  into  order ;  they  have   reduced  its  enormities  to 

*  "  One  cannot  condemn  the  Jesuits  without  condemning  at  the  same  time 
the  whole  ancient  school  of  tlie  Roman  Church." — Claudes  Defence  of  the 
Eeformation.     The  proofs  are  furnished  in  connection  with  the  passage. 

6* 


114  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

logical  consistency,  and  held  up  before  us  a  faithful  mirror  in 
which  we  may  contemplate  the  hideous  deformities  of  a  body 
which  claims  to  be  the  Church  of  God,  but  has  inscribed  in  in- 
delible characters  on  its  front,  the  synagogue  of  Satan.  Hence, 
the  papal  guardians  of  the  press,  in  their  zeal  to  stem  the  tor- 
rent of  falsehood  and  repress  the  spread  of  dangerous  specula- 
tions, while  they  have  eviscerated  the  Fathers,  prohibited  the 
writings  of  the  early  reformers,  and  condemned  the  most  pre- 
cious monuments  of  philosophy  and  learning;  have  suffered  the 
productions  of  Jesuitical  casuists  to  stalk  abroad  into  the  light  of 
day  with  the  imprimatur  of  the  Church  upon  them.  These 
works  are  studied  in  Papal  schools  and  colleges — systems  formed 
in  accordance  with  the  doctrines  of  Molina  have  free  circulation 
where  Locke,  Cudworth,  and  Bacon  are  not  permited  to  enter. 
If  the  moral  system  of  the  Jesuits  was  unpalatable  to  Rome,  why 
has  the  order  been  revived  ;  why  has  power  been  granted  to  its 
members  to  apply  themselves  to  the  education  of  youth,  to  direct 
colleges  and  seminaries,  to  hear  confessions,  to  preach  and  adminis- 
ter the  sacraments?  Pius  VII.,  in  allusion  to  the  Jesuits,  and  in 
vindication  of  his  odious  conduct  in  turning  them  loose  to  deso- 
late society,  states  *'  he  would  deem  it  a  great  crime  towards  God, 
if,  amidst  the  dangers  of  the  Christian  republic,  he  should  neglect 
to  employ  the  aids  which  the  special  providence  of  God  had  put 
in  his  power;  and  if,  placed  in  the  bark  of  St.  Peter,  and  tossed 
by  continual  storms,  he  should  refuse  to  employ  the  vigorous  and 
experienced  rowers  who  volunteer  their  services,"  The  peculiar 
services  which  the  Jesuits  have  rendered  to  the  interests  of  the 
papacy,  have  been  owing  to  the  lubricity  of  their  moral  princi- 
ples. It  is  not  their  superior  zeal,  but  the  superior  pliancy  of 
their  consciences,  which  have  made  them  such  "  vigorous  and  ex- 
perienced rowers,"  and  in  condescending  to  accept  their  labors, 
Rome  has  endorsed  the  enormities  of  their  system,  and  actually 
sanctioned  their  atrocious  immoralities. 

The  most  detestable  principles  of  this  graceless  order  have 
not  only  received  in  this  way  the  indirect  sanction  of  the  head  of 
the  papacy,  but  may  be  found  embodied  in  the  recorded  canons 
of  general  councils.  That  the  end  justifies  the  means — that  the 
interests  of  the  priesthood  are  superior  to  the  claims  of  truth, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  1J5 

justice,  and  humanity,  is  necessarily  implied  in  the  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Lateran,  that  no  oaths  are  binding — that  to  keep 
them  is  perjury  rather  than  fidelity — which  conflict  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  Catholic  Church.  What  fraud  have  the  Jesuits 
ever  recommended  or  committed,  that  can  exceed  in  iniquity 
the  bloody  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  reference 
to  Huss  ?  What  spirit  have  they  ever  breathed  more  deeply  im- 
bued with  cruelty  and  slaughter,  than  the  edict  of  Lateran  to 
kings  and  magistrates  to  extirpate  heretics  from  the  face  of  the 
earth?  The  principle  on  which  the  sixteenth  canon  of  the  third 
Council  of  Lateran  proceeds,  covers  the  doctrine  of  mental  re- 
servations. If  the  end  justify  the  means — if  we  can  be  perjured 
with  impunity  to  protect  the  authority  of  the  priesthood,  a  good 
intention  will  certainly  sanctify  any  other  lie,  and  a  man  may 
be  always  sure  that  he  is  free  from  sin,  if  he  can  only  be  sure  of 
his  allegiance  to  Rome  and  his  antipathy  to  heretics. 

The  doctrine  of  probability  is  in  full  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  papacy,  in  substituting  authority  for  evidence  and 
making  the  opinions  of  men  the  arbiters  of  faith.  And  yet  these 
three  cardinal  principles — of  intention,  mental  reservation,  and 
probability— which  are  so  thoroughly  and  completely  papal — cover 
the  whole  ground  of  Jesuitical  atrocity.*  How  absurd,  then,  to 
pretend  that  the  tendencies  of  the  Church  should  not  be  gathered 
from  the  system  of  the  Jesuits !  On  the  contrary,  it  is  plain  that 
they  are  the  only  consistent  exponents  of  Romish  doctrine ;  and 
should  that  Church  ever  rise  to  its  former  ascendancy  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  should  it  ever  reclaim  its  ancient  authority, 
the  type  which  it  would  assume  will  be  impressed  upon  it  by  the 
hands  of  the  Jesuits.  There  is  no  standard,  however,  by  which 
Rome  can  be  judged,  that  can  vindiate  her  character  from 
flagrant  immorality.  Her  priests,  in  all  ages,  have  been  the 
pests  of  the  earth,  and  that  inhuman  law,  which,  for  the  purpose 
of  wedding  them  more  completely  to  the  interests  of  the  Church, 

*  The  Jesuit,  Casnedi.  maintained  in  a  published  work  that,  at  the  day  of 
judgment,  God  will  say  to  many,  "  Come,  my  well-beloved,  you  who  have 
committed  murder,  blasphemed,  &c.,  because  you  believed  that  m  so  doing, 
you  were  right."  For  a  popufar  exposition  of  the  morality  of  the  Jesuits,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  Pascal's  Provincial  Letters  with  Nichole's  Notes 


116  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

has  debarred  them  from  one  of  the  prime  institutions  of  God,  has 
made  them  the  dread  of  innocence  and  the  horror  of  chastity.  I 
take  no  pleasure  in  drawing  the  sickening  picture  of  their  de- 
pravity! The  moral  condition  of  Europe,  at  the  time  of  the  Re- 
formation, superinduced  by  the  principles  and  policy  of  the 
Popes,  the  profligacy  of  the  clergy,  the  corruption  of  the  people, 
the  gross  superstition  which  covered  the  nations — these  are  the 
fruits  of  Papal  infallibility.  That  apostate  community  com- 
menced its  career  by  unsettling  the  standards  of  truth  and  know- 
ledge. Skepticism  prepared  the  way  for  licentiousness.  When 
the  standard  of  truth  was  o-one,  the  standard  of  morals  could  not 
abide;  and  as  fixed  principles  were  removed,  nothing  remained 
but  the  authority  of  Rome,  who  usurped  the  place  of  God,  be- 
came the  arbiter  of  truth  to  the  understanding,  and  of  morals  to 
the  heart,  by  making  her  own  interests,  her  avarice,  and  ambition, 
the  standard  of  both. 


LETTER    VIII. 

Papal  Infallibility,  proved  to  be  the  patron  of  Superstition  and  Will-worship. 

When  our  Saviour  declared  to  the  woman  of  Samaria,  God 
is  a  spirit  and  they  that  worship  Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit 
and  truth,  he  announced  in  this  sublime  proposition  the  just  dis- 
tinction between  pure  aud  undefiled  religion  and  the  various 
forms  of  superstition,  idolatry,  and  will-worship.  That  the  high- 
est felicity  of  man  is  to  be  found  alone  in  sympathetic  alliance 
with  the  Author  of  his  being,  is  the  dictate  alike  of  experience, 
philosophy,  and  Scripture ;  to  restore  the  communion  which  sin 
had  interrupted,  to  transform  man  again  into  the  image  of  his 
Maker,  and  to  fit  his  nature  to  receive  communications  of  Divine 
love,  is  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 
Harmonious  fellowship  with  God  necessarily  presupposes  a  know- 
ledge of  His  character ;  [being  an  interchange  of  friendship 
which  cannot  be  conceived  when  the  parties  are  strangers  to 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  117 

each  other.]  Hence  the  foundation  of  religion  must  be  laid  in 
a  just  (though  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  must  be  inade- 
quate) conception  of  the  attributes  of  Deity,  a  proper  apprehen- 
sion of  His  moral  economy  and  a  firm  belief  of  that  amazing 
condescension  by  which  He  becomes  conversable  with  men. 
He  that  cometh  to  God,  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is 
a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him.  The  opposite  ex- 
tremes of  true  religion,  b.")th  equally  founded  in  ignorance  of 
God,  though  under  different  forms  of  application,  are  superstiton, 
and  atheism.  From  atheism,  which,  as  it  dispenses  with  the 
sanctions  of  decency  and  morality,  is  a  prolific  fountain  of  bit- 
terness and  death,  proceed  the  waters  of  infidelity,  blasphemy, 
profaneness  and  impiety  ;  from  superstition,  which  distinguished 
philosophers,*  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  have  pronounced  to 
be  more  disastrous  to  the  interest  of  man  than  atheism  itself, 
flow  the  streams  of  idolatry,  fanaticism  and  spiritual  bondage. 
By  a  fatality  of  error,  which  seems  to  be  characteristic  of  this 
grand  apostacy,  the  Church  of  Rome  is  at  once  the  patron  of 
atheism  and  the  parent  of  superstition. f     Intent  upon  nothing 

*  Plutarch  and  Bacon.  Both  have  drawn  the  contrast  between  atheism 
and  superstition,  and  both  have  expressed  the  opinion  that  atheism  is  the  more 
harmless  of  the  two.  Warburton,  in  his  Divine  Legation,  has  reviewed  the 
sentiments  of  both,  with  his  usual  ability  and  force. 

t  That  I  am  not  singular  in  ascribing  to  the  same  cause,  in  diflferent  aspects, 
such  opposite  effects,  will  be  seen  from  the  following  passages  in  works  which 
have  very  few  points  of  coincidence. 

"  For  infidelity  and  superstition  are,  for  the  most  part,  near  allies,  as  pro- 
ceeding from  the  same  weakness  of  judgment,  or  some  corruption  of  heart. 
Those  guilty  fears  and  apprehensions  of  an  avenging  Deity,  which  drive  some 
persons  into  superstition,  do  as  naturally  drive  others  of  a  more  hard  and  stub- 
born temper  into  infidelity  or  atheism.  The  same  causes,  working  differently 
in  different  persons,  or  in  the  same  person  at  different  times,  produce  both  ; 
and  it  has  been  a  common  observation,  justifiable  by  some  noted  instances,  that 
no  men  whatever  have  been  more  apt  to  exceed  in  superstition,  at  the  sight  of 
danger,  than  those  who  at  other  times  have  been  most  highly  profane." — Wa- 
terland's  Works,  p.  58. 

"  Atheism  and  superstition  are  of  the  same  origin :  they  both  have  their 
rise  from  the  same  cause,  the  same  defect  in  the  mind  of  man,  our  want  of 
capacity  in  discerning  the  truth,  and  natural  ignorance  of  the  Divine  essence. 
Men  that  from  their  most  early  youth  have  not  been  imbued   with  the  princi- 


118         ^  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

but  her  own  aggrandizement,  she  asks  of  men  only  the  decen- 
cies of  external  homage,  and^.so  they  are  content  to  swell  her 
train  and  increase  her  power,  it  is  a  matter  of  comparative  in- 
difference whether  they  acknowledge  the  existence  of  God,  rev- 
erence His  truth,  love  His  character,  or  yield  obedience  to  His 
laws.  Her  arbitrary  pretensions  to  infallible  authority  disgust 
the  intelligent;  and  while,  like  the  heathen  philosophers  and  the 
pagan  priests,  who  occupied  a  higher  form  of  knowledge  than 
pertained  to  the  vulgar,  they  silently  acquiesce  in  existing  insti- 
tutions, they  maintain  in  their  hearts  a  profound  contempt  for 
the  whole  system  of  popular  delusion. 

That  the  Church  of  Rome  encourages  a  mean  and  slavish 
superstition,  will  sufficiently  appear  from  considering  the  nature 
of  superstition  itself  According  to  the  etymology  of  Vossius,* 
it  denotes  religious  excess.  Any  corruption  of  the  true  religion 
— every  modification  of  its  doctrines,  or  addition  to  its  precepts, 
— comes,  according  to  this  view,  under  the  head  of  superstition. 
In  the  estimation  of  others,  its  derivation  imports  a  species  of 
idolatry  founded  on  the  impression  that  the  souls  of  the  departed 
preserve  their  interest  in  sublunary  things. t  This  sense  is  evi- 
dently embraced  in  the  wider  meaning  of  religious  excess  :  and 

pies  of  the  true  religion,  or  have  not  afterwards  continued  to  be  strictly  edu- 
cated in  the  same,  are  all  in  great  danger  of  falling  either  into  the  one  or  the  other, 
according  to  the  difference  there  is  in  the  temperament  and  complexion  they 
are  of,  the  circumstances  they  are  in,  the  company  they  converse  vi^ith." — Sec- 
ond part  of  the  Fable  of  the  Bees,  p.  374. 

*  "  Quando  in  cultu  ultra  modum  legitimum  allquid  superest,  sive  quando 
cultus  modum  rectum  superstat  atque  excedit." — Et]jmologicum. 

"But  the  word"  (superstition),  says  Waterland,  '-properly  imports  any 
religious  excesses,  either  as  to  matter,  manner,  or  degree.  There  may  be  a 
superstitious  awe,  when  it  is  wrong-placed,  or  of  a  wrong  kind,  or  exceeds  in 
measure  ;  and  whenever  we  speak  of  a  superstitious  belief,  or  worship,  or  prac- 
tice, we  always  intend  some  kind  of  religious  excess.  Any  false  reHgion,  or 
false  part  of  a  true  one,  is  a  species  of  superstition,  because  it  is  more  than  it 
should  be,  and  betokens  excess." — Waterland,  Second  Charge  pt.  ii.  p.  57. 

t  Warburton  gives  a  different  explanation  :  "  The  Latin  word,  supersti- 
tio,  hath  a  reference  to  the  love  we  bear  to  our  children,  in  the  desire  that 
they  should  survive  us,  being  formed  upon  the  observation  of  certain  religious 
practices  deemed  efficacious  for  procuring  that  happy  event." — Div.  Leg.  b,  iii. 
^  6.     For  the  view  in  the  text,  see  Taylor,  vol.  v.  p.  127,  Heb.  Edition. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  119 

we  may  consequently  adopt  with  safety  the  more  general   accep- 
tation which  tiie  first  etymology  naturally  suggests. 

The  causes  of  superstition,  as  developed  hy  illustrious  writers 
of  antiquity,  as  well  as  by  modern  philosophers  and  divines,  in 
unison  with  the  voice  of  universal  experience,  may  be  traced 
to  the  influence  of  zeal  or  fear  in  minds  unenlightened  by  the 
knowledge  of  God.*  Plutarch  and  Bacon  concur  in  making  the 
reproach  or  contumely  of  the  Divine  Being,  in  ascribing  to  Him 
a  character  which  He  does  not  deserve,  of  imperfection,  weak- 
ness, cruelty  and  revenge,  an  essential  element  of  this  religious 
excess :  Taylorf  has  copiously  declaimed  on  fear  as  the  fruit- 
ful source  of -superstitious  inventions.  Hooker|  has  shown  that 
an  ignorant  zeal  is  as  prolific  in  corruptions  as  servile  dread  ; 
and  Bentley§  has  proved  that  a  multitude  of  observances  which 
first  commenced  in  simple  superstition,  were  turned  by  the  art- 
ful policy  of  Rome  into  sources  of  profit,  so  that  the  dreams  of 
enthusiasts  and  the  extravagance  of  ascetics  received  the  sanction 
of  infallible  authority,  and  were  proclaimed  as  expressions  of  the 
will  of  God.  From  the  follies  of  mystics,  the  excesses  of  fa- 
natics, the  legends  of  martyrs,  and  the  frauds  of  the  priesthood, 
whatever  could  be  converted  into  materials  of  power,  or  made 
available  to  purposes  of  gain,  has  been  craftily  selected,  and 
Romanism,  as  it  now  stands,  is  so  widely  removed  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  gospel  that  only  enough  of  similitude  is  preserved 
to  make  its  deformity  more  clear  and  disgusting.  It  sustains,  in 
fact,  the  same  relations  to  primitive  Christianity  which  ancient 
paganism  sustained  to  the  primeval  revelations  imparted  to  our 
race.  It  bears,  to  accommodate  a  simile  of  Bacon's,  the  same  re- 
semblance to  the  true  religion  which  an  ape  bears  to  a  man. 
To  develope  the  corruptions  of  the  papal  hierarchy,  whiclVstamp 
that  Churchwith  the  impress  of  superstition,  would  be  to  tran- 
scribe its  distinctive  doctrines  and  peculiar  practices.  The 
range  of  discussion  would  be  too  vast  for  a  limited  essay.     I  shall 

*  Timor  inanis  deorum.     Cic.  Je.  Nat.  Deo.  i.  42. 
t  Vol.  V.  Sermon  ix. 

t  Ecclesiast.  Pohty,  b.  5,  chap.  3.     The  reader  will  find  it  an  exquisite 
passage,  but  it  is  too  long  to  introduce  here. 

§  Sermon  upon  Poppry,  vol.  iii.,  Works.  • 


120  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

therefore  content  myself  with  briefly  showing  how  completely 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  ancient 
Paganism.* 

The  pagan  tendencies  of  Rome  appear,  in  the  first  place,  from 
the  appeal  which  she  makes  to  the  assistance  of  the  senses  in  aid- 
ing the  conception  and  directing  the  worship  of  the  Supreme 
Being.  The  pure  and  sublime  idea  which  the  Scriptures  incul- 
cate of  a  spiritual  God,  neither  possessed  of  a  corporeal  figure 
nor  capable  of  being  represented  by  visible  symbols,  is  as  much, 
a  stranger  to  the  theology  of  Rome  as  to  the  "  elegant  mythology 
of  Greece."  Hence  we  are  told  that  "  to  represent  the  persons 
of  the  Holy  Trinity  by  certain  forms,  under  which,  as  we  read 
in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  they  deigned  to  appear  is  not 
to  be  deemed  contrary  to  religion  or  the  law  of  God."  Accord- 
ingly the  second  commandment  is  annulled  by  the  hierarchy-*- 
in  books  of  popular  devotion  it  is  wholly  suppressed — the  win- 
dows of  papal  churches  are  frequently  adorned  with  images  of  the 
Trinity,  the  breviaries  and  mass-books  are  embellished  with  en- 
gravings which  represent  God  the  Father  as  a  venerable  old  man, 
the  Eternal  Son  in  human  form,  and  the  blessed  Spirit  in  the 
shape  of  a  dove.  Sometimes  grotesque  images,  hardly  surpassed 
in  the  fabulous  creations  of  heathen  poets,  where  centaurs,  gor- 
gons,  mermaids,  with  all  manner  of  impossible  things,  hold  un- 
disputed sway,  are  employed  to  give  an  adequate  impression  of 
Him  who  dwells  in  majesty  unapproachable,  whom  no  man  hath 
seen  or  can  see.  To  picture  the  Holy  Trinity  with  three  noses, 
and  four  eyes  and  three  faces — and  in  this  form  these  Divine  per- 
sons are  sometimes  submitted  to  the  devout  contemplation  of 
papal  idolaters — is  to  give  an  idea  of  God  from  which  an  ancient 


*  See  this  subject  fully  and  elaborately  discussed  in  Gale's  Court  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, part  3,  book  iii.  chap.  3. 

Bishop  Horsley  says — "  The  Church  of  Rome  is  at  this  day  a  corrupt  Church 
— a  Church  corrupted  with  idolatry  :  with  idolatry  very  much  the  same  in  kind 
and  in  degree,  with  the  worst  that  ever  prevailed  among  the  Egyptians  or  the 
Canaanites,  till  within  one  or  two  centuries,  at  the  most,  of  the  time  of  Moses." 
— Dissert,  on  Prophecies  of  the  Messiah  dispersed  among  the  Heathen; 
Woiks,  vol.  ii.  p.  289,  See  also  Bp.  Bull's  Corruptions  of  the  Church  of 
Tinme. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  121 

Roman  or  a  modern  Hindoo  might  turn  away  in  disgust.  Such 
gross  and  extravagant  symbols,  however  carefully  explained  or 
allegoricully  interpreted,  involve  a  degradation  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  which  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  with  the  sublime  an- 
nouncement of  our  Saviour,  that  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they  that 
worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The  ador- 
ation which  is  paid  lo  the  Deity  under  any  corporeal  figure  or 
visible  representation,  cannot  be  vindicated  from  the  charge  of 
idolatry  upon  any  principles  which  do  not  exempt  from  the  same 
imputation  every  form,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  of  pagan  su- 
perstition. It  is  quite  certain,  from  the  accounts  of  heathen  phi- 
losophers and  poets,  that  the  images  of  their  Gods  were  regarded 
simply  as  visible  memorials  of  invisible  deities — as  signs  by 
which  their  affections  were  excited  and  through  which  their 
worship  was  directed.  The  veneration  with  which  it  was  treated 
was  purely  of  that  relative  kind  which  the  Romish  doctors  im- 
pute to  the  devotees  of  their  own  communion.*     Pagan  statues 

*  "Nor  is  it  of  any  importance,  whether  they  worship  simply  the  idol,  or 
God  in  the  idol :  it  is  always  idolatry,  when  divine  honors  are  paid  to  an  idol, 
under  any  pretence  whatsoever.  And  as  God  will  not  be  worshipped  in  a  super- 
stitious or  idolatrous  manner,  whatever  is  conferred  on  idols,  is  taken  from 
Him.  Let  this  be  considered  by  those  who  seek  such  miserable  pretexts  for 
the  defence  of  that  execrable  idolatry  with  which,  for  many  ages,  true  religion 
has  been  overwhelmed  and  subverted.  The  images,  they  say,  are  not  consid- 
ered as  Gods.  Neither  were  the  Jews  so  thoughtless  as  not  to  remember  that 
it  was  God  by  whose  hand  they  had  been  conducted  out  of  Egypt,  before  they 
made  the  calf.  But  when  Aaron  said  that  those  were  the  gods  by  whom  they 
had  been  liberated  from  Egypt,  they  boldly  assented  :  signifying,  doubtless, 
that  they  would  keep  in  remembrance,  that  God  Himself  Avas  their  deliverer, 
while  they  could  see  Him  going  before  them  in  the  calf  Nor  can  we  believe 
the  heathen  to  have  been  so  stupid  as  to  conceive  that  God  was  no  other  than 
wood  and  stone.  For  they  changed  the  images  at  pleasure,  but  always  re- 
tained in  their  minds  the  same  gods  ;  and  there  were  many  images  for  one  god  ; 
nor  did  they  imagine  to  themselves  gods  in  proportion  to  the  multitude  of 
images:  besides,  they  daily  consecrated  new  images,  but  without  supposing 
that  they  made  new  gods.  Read  the  excuses  which  Augustine  (in  Psalm  cxiii.) 
says,  were  alleged  by  the  idolaters  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  When  they 
were  charged  with  idolatry,  the  vulgar  replied,  that  they  worshipped  not  the 
visible  figure,  but  the  Divinity  that  invisibly  dwelt  in  it.  But  they,  whose  re- 
ligion was,  as  he  expresses  himself,  more  refined,  said,  that  they  worshipped  nei- 
ther the  image,  nor  the  Spirit  represented  by  it :  but  that  in  the  corporeal  figure 


122  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  Romish  pictures  are  due  to  the  operation  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple— an  attempt  to  accommodate  the  receding  majesty  of  a  spir- 
itual being  to  human  sympathies,  and  to  divest  the  adoration  of 
an  infinite  object  of  some  of  its  awful  and  mysterious  veneration 
by  reducing  its  grandeur  to  the  feeble  apprehension  of  human 
capacities.  Fallen  humanity,  having  originally  apostatized  from 
God,  and  lost  the  right  as  well  as  the  power  of  intimate  commu- 
nion with  the  Father  of  spirits,  seeks  to  gratify  its  religious  aspi- 
rations by  tangible  objects  around  which  its  sympathies  can  read- 
ily cling.  Unable  to  soar  to  the  unapproachable  light  in  which 
Deity  dwells  in  mysterious  sanctity — it  spends  its  devotion  upon 
humbler  things,  to  which  it  imparts  such  divine  associations  as 
may  seem,  at  least,  to  reconcile  the  worship  w^ith  the  acknow- 
ledored  supremacy  of  God.  When  we  cannot  rise  to  God,  the 
religious  necessities  of  our  nature  will  drag  him  down  to  us. 

In  the  papal  community  the  degradation  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ino-  seems  to  have  reached  its  lowest  point  of  disgusting  fetichism 
in  the  adoration  of  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  sacramental  feast. 
I  know  of  nothing  in  the  annals  of  heathenism  that  can  justly  be 
compared  with  this  stupendous  climax  of  absurdity,  impiety, 
blasphemy,  and  idolatry.  The  work  of  the  cook,  and  the  pro- 
duct of  the  vintage — bread  and  wine — the  materials  of  food  which 
pass  through  the  stages  of  digestion  and  decay — are  placed  be- 
fore us,  after  having  been  submitted  to  the  magical  process  of  sa- 
cerdotal enchantment,  as  the  eternal  God,  in  the  person  of  the 
incarnate  Redeemer.*     The  eucharistic  elements  are  not  memo- 


they  beheld  a  sign  of  that  which  they  ought  to  worship."  Calvin's  Inst.  Kb.  i. 
cap.  11,  §  10.  Upon  this  whole  subject  of  theidolatry  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  Archbishop  Tenison's  Discourse  of  Idolatry,  particularly 
to  chapters  10,  11,  12.  That  the  heathens  did  not  regard  their  images  as  gods, 
and  that  they  worshipped  them  on  the  same  principle  vindicated  by  the  papists, 
may  be  seen  from  Arnobius,  Lactantius,  Austin,  and  divers  of  the  Fathers.  A 
very  interesting  discussion  of  the  nature  and  unlawfulness  of  image  worship  may 
be  found  in  Taylor's  Ductor  Dubitantium  book  2.  chap.  ii.  rule  6,  §  21,  ad  fin.  ; 
Works,  vol.  xii.  p.  382  seq.  The  vain  pretexts  of  the  papists  are  there  so  ably 
discussed  that  the  reader  is  earnestly  requested  to  peruse  it. 

*  The  reader  may  be  amused  with  the  following  description  of  the  scene  when 
the  bread  and  wine  are  about  to  be  destroyed  and  the  person  of  the  Saviour  pro- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED     AND    REFUTED.  123 

rials  of  Christ,  nor  visible  symbols  of  his  love — they  are,  after 
the  pretended  consecration  of  the  priest,  the  Son  of  God  himself 
They  are  worshipped  and  adored,  eaten  and  drunk,  received 
into  the  stomach  and  passed  into  the  bowels  as  the  Creator, 
Preserver,  and  Saviour  of  mankind.  The  ancient  Egyptians, 
in  paying  religious  veneration  to  inferior  animals,  and  to  a  cer- 
tain class  of  vegetables,  regarded  them  as  sacred,  as  we  learn 
from  Herodotus  and  Cicero,  on  account  of  their  subservience 
to  purposes  of  utility.  They  were  considered  as  instruments  of 
divine  Providence — not  as  gods  themselves — by  which  the  inter- 
ests of  husbandry  were  promoted,  and  noxious  vermin  were  de- 
stroyed. But  where,  in  the  whole  history  of  mankind,  among 
the  darkest  tribes  of  Africa  or  the  benighted  inhabitants  of  the 
isles  of  the  sea,  is  another  instance  to  be  found  of  a  superstition 
so  degraded,  or  a  form  of  idolatry  so  horribly  revolting,  as  that 
which  is  presented  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Mass?  The  infernal 
incantation  of  the  witches  in  Macbeth,  chantinop  their  awful 
dirges  over  the  boiling  caldron  in  which  are  mingled  the  elements 
of  death,  are  to  my  mind  less  insupportably  disgusting,  less  ter- 
rifically wicked,  than  the  priests  of  Rome,  pretending  to  subject 

duced.  It  is  taken  from  Bishop  England's  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Ro- 
man Missal,  p.  78. 

''  We  are  now  arrived  at  that  part  which  is  the  most  solemn,  important,  and 
interesting  of  the  entire  ;  every  thing  hitherto  had  reference,  remotely  or  proxi- 
mately, to  the  awful  moment  which  approaches.  For  now  the  true  victim  is 
about  to  be  produced.  In  a  well  regulated  Cathedral  this  indeed  is  a  moment 
of  splendid,  improving,  and  edifying  exhibition  to  the  well  instructed  Christian. 
The  joyful  hosannas  of  the  Organ  have  died  away  in  deep  and  solemn  notes 
which  seem  to  be  gradually  lost  as  they  ascend  to  the  throne  of  God,  and  sol- 
emn silence  pervades  the  Church  ;  the  celebrant  stands  bareheaded,  about  to 
perform  the  most  awful  duty  in  which  a  man  could  possibly  be  engaged. — His 
assistants,  in  profound  expectation,  await  the  perfonnance  of  that  duty  ;  tapcr- 
bearei-s  line  the  sides  of  the  Sanctuary,  and  with  their  lighted  lamps  await  the 
arrival  of  their  Lord.  Incense-bearers  kneel,  ready  to  envelope  the  altar  in  a 
cloud  of  perfumes  which  represents  the  prayers  of  the  Saints  ;  and  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  consecration,  when  the  celebrant  elevates  th";  host,  and  the  tinkling 
of  a  small  bell  gives  notice  of  the  arrival  of  the  Lamb,  every  knee  is  bent,  every 
head  is  bowed,  gratulating  music  bursts  upon  the  ear,  and  the  lights  which  sur- 
round the  throne  of  Him  who  comes  to  save  a  world,  are  seen  dimly  blazing 
through  the  clouds  of  perfumed  smoke,  which  envelopes  this  mystic  place." 


124  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

the  Saviour  of  the  world,  in  cold-blood  cruelty,  and  for  purposes 
of  hire,  and  that  in  increasing  millions  of  instances,  to  the  unut- 
terable agonies  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary. 

In  tracing  the  origin  of  transubstantiation  and  the  consequent 
absurdity  of  tiie  Mass,  we  are  struck  with  another  coincidence 
between  the  practices  and  doctrines  of  Rome  and  the  rites  and 
customs  of  pagan  antiquity.  That  the  terms  and  phrases  and 
peculiar  ceremonies  which  were  applied  to  the  mysteries  of  the 
heathen  superstition,  have  been  transferred  to  the  institutions  of 
the  Christian  system,  and  have  vitiated  and  corrupted  the  sa- 
craments of  the  gospel,  is  now  generally  admitted.*    It  is  in  the 

*  The  following  extract  from  Casaubon's  16th  Exercitation  on  the  Annals 
of  Baronius,  will  sustain  the  assertion  of  the  text : 

"  Pii  patres,  quum  intelligerent,  quo  facilius  ad  veritatis  amorem  corruptas 
superstitione  mentes  traducerent  ;  et  verba  sacrorum  illorura  quamplurima,  in 
suos  usus  transtulerunt  ;  et  cum  doctrinse  verse  capita  aliquot  sic  tractarunt,  turn 
ritus  etiam  nonnullos  ejusmodi  instituerunt  ;  ut  videantur  cum  Paulo  dicere  gen- 

tibus  voluisse,  a  ayvowreg  £V(Te/3eiT£,'  ravra  Karayyt^onEv  vfiiv.      Hinc  igitur  est,  quod 

sacramenta  patres  appellarunt  mysteria,  ^a-riaeis,  T£\£Tas,  rfXcfcoo-u?.  eiro-reias,  sive 
£TTOTp£iai,  T£\£(TTr]pta  ;  interdum  etiam,  opyia,  sed  rarius ;  peculiariter  vero  eucha- 
ristiam  r£A£Twv  T£\£Tr)v.  Dicitur  etiam  antonomastice  m  jxvcrnpiov  aut  numero 
multitudinis  ra  jivarripia.  Apud  patres  passim  de  sacra  communione  leges 
ippiKTa  ixvarrjpia  vel  to  £viToppr)Tov  ^varripiov :  Grcgorio  Magno,  '  magnum  et  pa- 
vendum  mysterium.'  Mv£ia9ai  in  vetemra  monumentis  saepae  leges  pro  coenae 
dominicae  fieri  particeps  :  [ivrjaiv  pro  ipsa  actione  ;  ^vcmg  est  sacerdos,  qui  etiam 
dicitur  o  i.ivarayu)ycjv  et  o  i£poT£'X£arr]s.  In  liturgiis  graecis  et  alibi  etiam  r]  upa 
te'Sett]  et  /?  Kpvfia  Kat  £TTi(p3/3og  Tc^ern  et  eucharistia.  Quemadmodum  autem 
gradus  quidem  in  mysteriis  paganicis  servati  sunt,  sic  Dionysius  universam  rwv 
teXbtcov  rrjv  i£povytav  traditionem  sacramentorum  distinguit  in  tres  acliones,  quae 
et  ritibus  et  temporibus  erant  divisae  ;  prima  est  purgatio  ;  altera  initiatio  ;  ter- 
tia  consummatio.  Spem  meliorem  morientibus  attulisse  mysteria  Attica  dicebat 
paulo  ante  M.  Tullius.  Patres, contra,  certam  salutem  et  vitam  aeternam  Christi 
mysteria  digne  percipientibus  affere,  confirmabant  ;  qui  ilia  contemnerent,  ser- 
vari  non  posse  ;  finem  vero  et  fructum  ultimum  sacramentorum,  deificationem, 
dicere  non  dubitant,  quum  scirent  vanarum  superstitionem  auctores,  suis  epoptes 
sum  honorem  audere  spondere.  Passim  igitur  legas  apud  patres,  r???  lepai  fjvara- 
ywyiag  t£}^os  £ivai  Oeicjctip,  finem  sacramentorum  esse,  ut  qui  vera  fide  ilia  per- 
ciperent,  in  futura  vita  dii  evadant.  Athanasius  verbo,  Q£oiToi£iaQai  in  earn  rem 
est  usus ;  quod  mox  ab  eodem  explicatur,  participatione  spiritus  conjungimur 
deitate.  De  symbolis  sacramentorum  per  quae  divinse  illae  ceremoniae  celebran- 
tur,  nihil  attinet  hoc  loco  dicere  ;  illud  vero  quod  est  et  appellatum  fidei  sym- 
bolum,  diversi  est  generis  et  fidelibus  tesserae  usum  praestat  per  quam  se  mutuo 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  125 

teachings  of  heathen  priests,  in  secret  orgies  of  gross  impiety, 
and  flagrant  indecency — and  not  in  the  instructions  of  Christ  and 

agnoscunt,  qui  pietati  sacramento  dixerunt ;  cujus  modi  tesseras  fuisse  etiam  in 
paganorum  mysteriis  ostendimus.  Formulae  illi  in  mysteries  peragendis  usur- 
patae,  procul  este  profani,  respondet  in  liturgia  haec  per  diaconos  pronuntiari 
solita  ;  omnes  catechumeni,  foras  discedete,  omnes  possessi,  omnes  non  initiati. 
Noctu  ritus  multi  in  mysteriis  peregebantur  ;  noctu  etiam  initiatio  Christian- 
orum  inchoabatur  ;  GntiAeniio  no\rdn<iXvir  splendidissima  nox  vigiliarum.  Quod 
autem  dicebamus  de  silentio  in  sacris  opertaneis  servari  a  paginis  solito,  id  in- 
stitutum  veteres  Christiani  sic  probarunt,  ut  religiosa  ejus  observatione  mystas 
omnes  longe  superarint.  Quemadmodum  igitur  dicit  Seneca,  sanctiora  sacro- 
rum  solis,  initiatis  fuisse  nota,  et  Jamblichus  de  philosophia  Pythagoreorum  in 
Ta  anoppriTa,  quae  efi'eri  non  poterant,  et  ra  eiapopa,  quae  foras  efl'ere  jus  erat ;  ita 
nniversam  doctrinam  Christianam  veteres,  distinguebant  in  ra  t.K<popa,  id  est,  ea 
quae  enuntiari  apud  omnes  poterant,et  ra  uTroppriTa  arcana  temere  non  vulganda: 
inquit  Basilius,  dogmata  silentio  preniuntur,pr(Bconia  publicantur.  Chrysos- 
tomus  de  iis  qui  baptizantur  pro  mortuis  :  cupio  quidem  perspicue  rem  dicere  ; 
sed propter  non  initiatos  non  andeo  ;  hi  interpretatio nem  reddunt  difficiliorem  ; 
dum  110S  cogiint,  aut  perspicue  non  dicere,  ant  arcano,  quce  taceri  dehent,  apud 
ipsos  efferre.  Atque  ut  t^op^^ziaQai  ra  fivcrrripia  dixerunt  pagani,  de  iis  qui  ar- 
cana mysteriorum  evulgabant ;  ita  dixit  Dionysius,  vide  ne  enunties  aut  parum 
revereuter  habeas  sancta  sanctorum.  Passsim  apud  Angustinum  leges,  sacra- 
mentum  quod  noriintfidelei.  In  Johannem  tract,  xi.  autem  sic  :  Omnes  cate- 
chumeni jam  credunt  in  nomine  Christi.  Sed  Jesus  non  es  credit  iis.  Mox, 
Interrogemus  catechumenuni,  Manducas  carnem  filii  hominis  ?  nescit  quid  dic- 
imus.  Iterum,  Nescit  catechumeni  quid  accipiant  Christiani  ;  erubescant  ergo 
quia  nesciunt." 

The  pious  fathers,  perceiving  that  they  could  the  more  easily  draw  over  to 
the  love  of  the  truth  minds  corrupted  by  superstition,  both  transferred  to  their 
own  use  a  great  many  of  the  terms  employed  in  their  sacred  rites,  and  so  treat- 
ed certain  articles  of  true  doctrine,  and  instituted  such  rites,  that  they  seem  to 
have  been  willing,  with  Paul,  to  say  to  the  Gentiles  :  "  What  ye  ignorantly  wor- 
ship, that  we  declare  unto  you."  Hence  it  is,  that  the  Fathers  called  the  Sacra- 
ments mysteries,  sometimes  even  orgies,  though  more  rarely,  but  peculiarly  the 
eucharist,  the  festival  of  festivals.  In  the  Fathers,  you  will  every  where  read 
such  terms  as  these,  applied  to  the  sacred  communion:  The  awful  mysteries, 
the  ineffable  mystery ;  in  Gregory  the  Great,  the  great  and  dreadful  mystery. 
In  the  language  of  the  ancient  documents,  to  be  initiated  into  the  mysteries,  is 
to  be  a  partaker  of  the  Lord's  supper.  The  act  itself  was  called  initiation, 
and  the  officiating  priest  was  termed  a  mystagogue.  In  the  Greek  Liturgies, 
as  also  elsewhere,  the  Eucharist  is  called  the  holy  festival,  the  secret  and  dread- 
ful festival.  As  there  were  degrees  in  the  Pagan  mysteries,  so  Dionysius  dis- 
tinguishes the  whole  administration  of  sacraments  into  three  actions,  which 
were  separate  in  rites  and  times: — 1.  Purgation;  2.  Initiation;  3.  Consum- 


126  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

his  Apostles,  that  we  are  to  look  for  the  mysteries  which,  in  the 
papal  sect,  envelop  the  seals  of  the  Christian  covenant.     As  the 

mation.  Tully  said  that  the  Attic  mysteries  brought  a  better  hope  to  the  dying. 
The  Fathers,  on  the  other  hand,  confidently  affirmed  that  the  mysteries  of 
Christ  brought  certain  salvation  and  eternal  life  to  those  who  worthily  appre- 
hended them — that  those  who  despised  them  could  not  be  saved — yea,  they  did 
not  hesitate  to  assert,  that  the  end  and  ultimate  fruit  of  the  sacraments  was  dei- 
fication, since  they  knew  that  the  authors  of  vain  superstition  promised  this 
honor  to  those  admitted  to  their  secret  rites.  You  may  constantly  read  among 
the  Fathers,  that  the  end  of  the  sacraments  is,  that  those  who  apprehend  them 
with  a  true  faith,  may  go  into  the  future  life  as  gods.  Athanasius  uses  the 
word  to  he  deified,  in  reference  to  this  matter,  and  explains  it  to  mean,  that  we 
are  united  to  God  by  the  participation  of  His  Spirit.  Of  the  symbols  of  the 
sacraments  by  which  those  divine  ceremonies  were  celebrated,  it  is  not  our  pur- 
pose to  speak  here.  That  which  was  called  the  symbol  of  faith,  was  of  different 
kinds,  and  served  as  a  token  by  which  the  faithful  could  mutually  recognize 
each  other.  Tokens  of  this  kind,  we  have  shown,  were  used  in  the  pagan 
mysteries.  To  that  formula  of  the  pagans  in  celebrating  their  mysteries — 
stand  aloof,  ye  profane — corresponded  in  the  liturgy  these  words  usually  pro- 
nounced by  the  deacons, — "  All  catechumens,  all  possessed,  all  uninitiated,  retire 
out  of  doors."  Many  of  the  heathen  rites  were  performed  at  night  ;  the  initia- 
tion of  Christians  was  also  begun  at  night.  It  is  called  by  Gaudentius  the 
most  splendid  night  of  vigils.  The  silence  observed  by  the  pagans  in  their 
secret  ceremonies,  was  so  approved  by  the  Christians,  that  in  their  religious  ob- 
servation of  it  they  far  excelled  the  heathen  priests.  As  Seneca  says  that  the 
most  holy  of  the  sacred  things  were  known  to  the  initiated  alone,  and  Jambli- 
chus  divides  the  Pythagorean  philosophy  into  the  secret,  which  could  not  be 
uttered,  and  the  public,  which  could  be  pioclahned,  so  the  ancients  distinguish 
the  whole  Christian  doctrine,  into  the  public,  or  that  which  might  be  announced 
to  all,  and  the  secret,  which  could  not  be  promulged.  Basil  says,  doctrines  are 
pressed  in  silence,  things  that  may  be  preached  are  published.  Chrysostom  says, 
speaking  of  those  who  are  baptized  for  the  dead,  "  I  desire,  indeed,  to  speak 
plainly,  but  on  account  of  the  uninitiated  I  dare  not :  these  render  the  interpre- 
tation more  difficult — since  they  compel  us  either  not  to  speak  perspicuously,  or 
to  reveal  secrets  which  ought  to  be  kept  hid."  As  those  among  the  pagans  who 
published  their  secrets  were  said  to  mock  the  mysteries,  so  Dionysius  says — 
"  See  that  ye  neither  renounce  nor  lightly  esteem  these  holy  of  holies."  Au- 
gustin  constantly  speaks  of  the  sacrament  which  "  the  faithful  knew."  In  tract 
xi.  on  John,  he  says — "  All  catechumens  now  beUeve  in  the  name  of  Christ,  but 
Jesus  does  not  trust  himself  to  men."  Again, — "  Let  us  ask  a  catechumen,  dost 
thou  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  \  he  knows  not  what  we  say."  Again, — 
"  Catechumens  know  not  what  Christians  receive — let  them  blush  at  their  igno- 
rance." 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  127 

progress  of  corruption  is  always  downwards,  what  was  beo-un  in 
mystery  ended  in  absurdity — the  extravagant  terms  in  which  the 
fathers  described  the  Sacrament  of  the  supper  in  evident  rivalry 
of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries — the  unnatural  awe  with  which  they 
invested  a  simple  institution,  led  in  after  times  to  this  form  of 
idolatry,  which  transcended  the  follies  of  their  pagan  guides. 

But  in  no  part  of  the  papal  system  is  the  spirit  of  Heathen- 
ism more  completely  carried  out  than  in  the  respect  and  venera- 
tion which  are  paid  to  the  persons  and  relics  of  the  saints.  The 
deification  of  distinguished  benefactors  was  perhaps  the  last  form 
in  which  ancient  idolatry  corrupted  the  objects  of  worship.  The 
canonizations  of  Rome  differ  but  little  in  their  spirit  and  ten- 
dency from  the  apotheoses  of  antiquity.  The  records  of  martyr- 
dom have  been  explored,  fabulous  legends  promoted  into  history, 
for  the  purpose  of  exalting  to  the  rank  and  dignity  of  intercessors 
with  the  Father  a  host  of  obscure  and  worthless  individuals,  some 
of  whom  were  the  creatures  of  fiction,  others  rank  and  disgusting 
impostors,  and  a  multitude  still  a  disgrace  to  humanity.  The 
eloquent  declamation  of  the  Fathers  on  the  glory  which  attached 
to  a  crown  of  martyrdom — the  distinguished  rewards  which,  in  a 
future  state,  they  confidently  promised  to  those  who  should  shed 
their  blood  for  religion,  combined  with  the  assurance  of  correspond- 
ing honors  and  a  lasting  reputation  upon  earth,  were  suited  to 
encourage  imposture  and  frauds,  leading  some  to  seek  in  the 
fires  of  persecution  a  full  expiation  for  past  iniquities,  and  hun- 
dreds more,  when  the  storm  had  abated,  to  magnify  sufferings 
which  had  only  stopped  short  of  death.  It  was  perfectly  natural 
that  the  primitive  church  should  concede  unwonted  tokens  of 
gratitude  to  the  memories  of  martyred  champions  and  the  persons 
of  living  confessors.  Nor  are  we  to  be  astonished  that  their 
names  should  be  commemorated  with  the  pomp  and  solemnity  of 
public  festivals,  among  those  who  had  witnessed  the  signal  effects 
of  such  imposing  institutions  upon  the  zeal  and  energy  of  their 
pagan  countrymen.  What  at  first  was  extravagant  admiration, 
finally  settled  into  feelings  of  devotion — these  sacred  heroes  be- 
came invested  with  supernatural  perfections — from  mortal  men, 
they  imperceptibly  grew,  in  the  sentiments  of  the  multitude,  to 
the  awful  dignity  of  demigods  and  saviours — and  finally  received 


128  ROJMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

that  religious  homage  which  was  due  exclusively  to  the  King 
Eternal.  The  system  of  Rome  as  it  stands  to-day,  having  con- 
firmed the  growing  superstition  of  ages,  is  as  completely  a  system 
of  polytheism  as  that  of  ancient  Egypt  or  Greece.  The  Virgin 
Mary  is  as  truly  regarded  as  divine,  as  her  famous  prototype  Cy- 
bele  or  Ceres — and  the  whole  rabble  of  Saints  are  as  truly  adored 
in  the  churches  of  Rome  as  the  elegant  gods  of  Olympus  were 
worshipped  in  the  temples  of  Greece.  To  say  that  the  homage 
accorded  to  these  subordinate  divinities  is  inferior  in  kind 
and  different  in  principle,  is  a  feeble  and  worthless  evasion. 
Magnificent  temples  are  created  to  their  memories,  in  which 
their  worship  is  ''  adorned  with  the  accustomed  pomp  of  libations 
and  festivals,  altars  and  sacrifices,"  in  the  solemn  oblation  of  the 
Mass,  which,  according  to  the  papal  creed,  is  the  most  awful  mys- 
tery of  religion,  and  the  highest  act  of  supreme  adoration,  the 
honor  of  the  saints  is  as  conspicuous  a  part  of  the  service  as 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.*  Their  relics  are  conceived 
to  be  invested  with  supernatural  power,  their. bones  or  nails,  the 
remnants  of  their  dress,  or  the  accidental  appendages  of  their 
person  are  beheld  with  awful  veneration  or  sought  with  incredi- 
ble avidity,  being  regarded  as  possessed  of  a  charm  like  "  the  eye 
of  newt  and  the  toe  of  frog,"  which  no  machinations  can  resist, 
no  evil  successfully  assail.  As  the  name  of  God  sanctifies  the 
altars  consecrated  to  his  worship,  so  the  names  of  these  saints  sanc- 
tify the  altars  devoted  to  their  memories,  and  vast  distinctions  are 
made  in  the  price  and  value  of  the  sacrifice,  according  to  the  spot 
on  which  the  same  priest  offers  precisely  the  very  same  victim.    In 

*  The  following  praj^er  occurs  .in  the  Ordinary  of  the  Mass :  "  Receive,  O 
Holy  Trinity,  this  oblation  which  we  make  to  Thee  in  memory  of  the  Passion, 
Resurrection  and  Ascension  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  honor  of  the 
blessed  Mary,  ever  a  Virgin,  of  blessed  John  Baptist,  the  holy  Apostles  Peter 
and  Paul,  and  of  all  the  saints  ;  that  it  may  be  available  to  their  honor  and  our 
salvation :  and  may  they  vouchsafe  to  intercede  for  us  in  heaven,  whose  me- 
mory we  celebrate  on  earth.  Through  the  same  Christ  our  Lord." — England's 
Translation  of  the  Rom.  3Iiss.  p.  281.  Here  Christ,  the  eternal  Son  of  God, 
is  distinctly  said  to  be  offered  up  in  honor  of  all  the  saints.  What  can  that 
man  withhold  from  them  who  gives  them  his  Saviour  ]  His  heart  surely  is  a 
small  boon  compared  with  this  august  oblation.  And  yet  Trent  has  the  auda- 
city to  declare  that  they  are  not  worshipped  with  homage  truly  Divine. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  ]29 

the  case  of  these  privilged  altars  it  is  evidently  the  name  of  the 
saint  which  gives  peculiar  value  to  the  gift,  though  that  gift  is 
declared  to  be  none  other  than  the  Son  of  God  himself  To 
these  circumstances,  which  unquestionably  indicate  more  than 
mortal  respect,  may  be  added  the  vast  importance  which  the  wor- 
ship and  creed  of  Rome  attach  to  their  pretended  intercession. 
They  execute  a  priestly  function  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  which 
it  is  hard  to  distinguish  from  the  office  of  the  Redeemer  ;  in  fact, 
their  performances  in  heaven  seem  to  be  designed  to  stimulate 
the  lazy  diligence  of  Christ,  and  to  remind  him  of  the  wants  of 
his  children,  which  the  absorbing  contemplation  of  his  own  glory 
might  otherwise  exclude  from  his  thoughts.  It  is  the  saints  who 
keep  us  fresh  in  the  memory  of  God  and  sustain  our  cause 
against  the  careless  indifference  of  an  advocate  whom  Rome  has 
discovered  not  to  be  sufficiently  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
infirmities,  though  Paul  declares  that  he  sympathizes  in  all  points 
with  his  children,  and  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  for 
Ihem. 

To  these  multiplied  saints,  in  accordance  with  the  true  spirit 
of  ancient  Paganism,  different  departments  of  nature  are  intrust- 
ed, different  portions  of  the  Universe  assigned.  Some  protect 
their  votaries  from  fire,  and  others  from  the  power  of  the  storm. 
Some  guard  from  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness,  and 
others  from  the  arrow  that  fiieth  at  noonday.  Some  are  gods  of 
the  hills,  and  others  of  the  plains.  Their  worshippers,  too,  like 
the  patrons  of  judicial  astrology,  have  distributed  among  them, 
and  allotted  to  their  special  providence  and  care,  the  different 
limbs  and  members  of  the  human  frame.  It  is  the  province  of 
one  to  heal  disorders  of  the  throat,  another  cures  diseases  of  the 
eye.  One  is  the  shield  from  the  violence  of  fever,  and  another 
preserves  from  the  horrors  of  the  plague.  In  addition  to  this, 
each  faithful  Papist  is  constantly  attended  by  a  guardian  angel 
and  a  guardian  saint,  to  whom  he  may  flee  in  all  his  troubles, 
whose  care  of  his  person  never  slumbers,  whose  zeal  for  his  good 
is  never  fatigued.  If  this  be  not  the  Pagan  system  of  tutelar 
divinities  and  household  gods,  it  is  hopeless  to  seek  for  resem- 
blances among  objects  precisely  alike — for  a  difference  of  name, 
where  no  other  discrepancies  are  discernible,  is  sufficient  to  es- 


130  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

tablish  a  difference  of  things.  The  fatherly  interest,  the  unceas- 
ing vigilance,  the  deep  devotion  with  which  these  heavenly  spirits 
superintend  the  affairs  of  the  faithful,  cannot  be  explained  upon 
any  principles  which  deny  to  them  the  essential  attributes  of  God. 
The  prayers  which  are  offered  at  their  shrines,  the  incense  which 
is  burnt  before  their  images,  the  awful  sanctity  which  invests 
their  relics,  the  stupendous  miracles  which  the  very  enunciation 
of  their  names  is  believed  to  have  achieved,  are  signal  proofs  that 
they  are  regarded  as  really  and  truly  divine.*  The  nice  distinc- 
tions of  worship  which  the  Church  of  Rome  artfully  endeavors  to 
draw,  for  the  purpose  of  evading  the  dreadful  imputation  of  idol- 
atry, are  purely  fictitious  and  imaginary.  That  the  language  in 
which  alone  the  Fathers  of  Trent  recognized  the  Scriptures  as 
authentic,  is  too  poor  to  express  the  subtlety  of  these  refine- 
ments, is  a  violent  presumption  against  them — and  that  the 
Greek  from  which  they  are  extracted  does  not  justify  these  nice- 
ties of  devotion,  must  be  admitted  by  all  who  are  capable  of 
appreciating  the  force  of  words.  Certain  it  is  that  no  sanction 
is  found  in  the  Scriptures  for  the  arbitrary  gradations  of  worship 
which  the  Papacy  is  anxious  to  inculcate  under  the  terms  dov- 
Xsia    (dulia),    vnsg-dovXsia    (hyper-dulia),    and   XaTQsiu    (latria).t 

*  The  foiiowing  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  the  honor  which  is  ascribed 
to  the  saints.  Let  the  reader  judge  whether  more  importance  be  attached  to 
the  intercession  of  Christ,  than  to  the  prayers  of  his  departed  servants  : 

"  O  God,  who  was  pleased  to  send  blessed  Patrick,  thy  bishop  and  confessor, 
to  preach  thy  glory  to  the  Gentiles,  grant  that  by  his  inerHs  and  intercession 
we  may  through  Thy  mercy  be  enabled  to  perform  what  Thou  commandest." 
Take  again  the  Collect  for  St.  George's  day  :  "  O  God,  who,  by  the  merits 
and  prayers  of  blessed  George,  thy  martyr,  fillest  the  hearts  of  Thy  people 
with  joy,  mercifully  grant  that  the  blessing  we  ask  in  his  name  (per  eum)  we 
may  happily  obtain  by  Thy  grace."  Festival  of  St.  Peter's  chair,  at  Rome, 
Collect :  "  Oh  God  !  who,  by  delivering  to  Thy  blessed  Apostle  Peter,  the  keys 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  didst  give  him  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing, 
grant  that,  by  his  intercession,  we  may  be  freed  from  the  bonds  of  our  sins." 
In  what  is  called  the  Secret  it  is  said  ;  "  May  the  intercession,  we  beseech 
Thee,  O  Lord,  of  blessed  Peter,  the  Apostle,  render  the  prayers  and  offerings 
of  Thy  Church  acceptable  to  Thee,  that  the  mysteries  we  celebrate  in  his 
honor,  may  obtain  for  us  the  pardon  of  our  sins." 

t  They  pretend  that  the  reverence  which  they  pay  to  images  is  Ei6(jj\ov'X£.ia 
(service  of  images),  but  deny  that  it  is  ciioXoi'XarpEia  (worship  of  images).     For 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  131 

Whatever  forced  interpretations  may  be  put  upon  the  lano-uao-e  of 
the  Romish  Breviaries  in  the  prayers  which  are  addressed  to  the 
other  saints,  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  is  evidently  in  the  highest 

in  this  manner  they  express  themselves,  when  they  maintain  that  the  reverence, 
which  they  call  dulia,  may  be  given  to  statues  or  pictures,  without  injury  to 
God.  They  consider  themselves,  therefore,  liable  to  no  blame,  while  they  are 
only  the  servants  of  their  idols  and  not  worshippers  of  them,  as  though  worship 
were  not  rather  inferior  to  service.  And  yet,  while  they  seek  to  shelter  them- 
selves under  a  Greek  term,  they  contradict  themselves  in  the  most  childish 
manner.  For  since  the  Greek  word  Aarpsveiv  signifies  nothing  else  but  to 
worship,  what  they  say  is  equivalent  to  a  confession  that  they  adore  their 
images,  but  without  adoration.  Nor  can  they  justly  object  that  I  am  trying 
to  ensnare  them  with  words :  they  betray  their  own  ignorance  in  their  endea- 
vors to  raise  a  mist  before  the  eyes  of  the  simple.  But,  however  eloquent  they 
may  be,  they  will  never  be  able,  by  their  rhetoric,  to  prove  one  and  the  same 
thing,  to  be  two  different  things.  Let  tjieni  point  out,  I  say,  a  difference,  in 
fact,  that  they  may  be  accounted  different  from  ancient  idolaters.  For  as  an 
adulterer  or  homicide  will  not  escape  the  imputation  of  guilt,  by  giving  his 
crime  a  new  and  arbitrary  name,  so  it  is  absurd  that  these  persons  should  be 
exculpated  by  the  subtle  invention  of  a  name,  if  they  really  differ  in  no  respect 
from  those  idolaters  whom  they  themselves  are  constrained  to  condemn.  But 
their  case  is  so  far  from  being  different  from  that  of  former  idolaters,  that  the 
source  of  all  the  evil,  is  a  preposterous  emulation,  with  which  they  have  rivalled 
them  by  their  minds  in  contriving,  and  their  hands  in  forming  visible  symbols 
of  the  Deity." — Calvin's  Inst.,  lib.  i  cap.  xi.  §  11. 

The  Apostles  are  addressed  in  the  following  hymn,  as  the  dispensers  alike 
of  temporal  and  spiritual  blessings  to  their  earthly  suppliants: 

"  Vos  Sseculoruni  Judices, 
Et  vera  mundi  lumina, 
Votis  precamur  cordium  ; 
Audite  voces  supplicum. 
Qui  templacoeli  clauditis 
Serasque  verbo  solvitis, 
Nos  a  reatu  no.xios 
Solvi  jubeto,  qsesumus. 
Praecepta  quorum  protinus 
Languor  salusque  sentiunt 
Sanate  mente  languidas ; 
Augete  nos  virtutibus." 

O  you,  true  lights  of  human  kind. 
And  judges  of  the  world  designed, 
To  you  our  hearty  vows  we  show, 
Hear  your  petitioners  below. 
The  gates  of  heaven  by  your  command 
Are  fastened  close  or  open  stand  j 
Grant,  we  beseech  you,  then,  that  we 
From  sinful  slavery  may  be  free. 


132  ROMANIST  ARdUMENTS  FOR  THE 

form  of  supreme  adoration.  She  is  not  only  invoked  as  being 
likely  to  prove  a  successful  intercessor  with  the  Saviour,  but  sol- 
emnly entreated  to  command  her  Son  to  answer  the  petitions  of 
her  servants.*     She  is  exalted  above  all  that  is  called  God — "  she 

Sickness  and  health  your  power  obey  ; 
This  comes,  and  that  you  diive  away. 
Then,  from  our  souls,  all  sickness  chase, 
Let  healing  virtues  take  its  place. 

These  extracts  may  be  found  in  the  Vespers  or  Evening  Office  of  the 
English  Papists.  The  Secret  is  from  the  Pocket  Missal.  See  Bamp.  Lect.  for 
1807,  from  which  I  have  taken  them,  not  having  the  original  works  at  hand. 

*  This  blasphemous  language,  which  is  justified  by  the  services  of  the 
Church,  was  stoutly  defended  by  Harding,  in  his  controversy  with  Bishop 
Jewell :  "  If  now,"  says  he, "  any  spiritual  man,  such  as  St.  Bernard  was, 
deeply  considering  the  great  honor  and  dignity  of  Christ's  mother,  do,  in  excess 
of  mind,  spiritually  sport  with  her,  bidding  her  to  remember  that  she  is  a  mother, 
and  that  thereby  she  has  a  certain  right  to  command  her  son,  and  require  in  a 
most  sweet  manner,  that  she  use  her  right  ;  is  this  either  impiously  or  impu- 
dently spoken  ?  Is  not  he,  rather,  most  impious  and  impudent  that  findeth 
fault  therewith  <"' 

The  following  note,  which  occurs  in  the  Bampton  Lecture  for  1807,  p.  238, 
presents  an  awful  view  of  the  devotions,  which,  in  their  authorized  books,  the 
English  papists  render  to  the  Virgin  : 

"  In  the  common  office  for  her,  we  have  the  hymn,  Ave  Maria  Stella,  which 
contains  the  following  petitions :   (Vespers,  p.  1.31.) 

"  Solve  vincli  reis, 
Prefer  lumen  cfficis, 
Mala  nostra  pelle, 
Bona  cuncta  posce. 
Monstra  te  esse  matrem, 
»  Sumat  perte  preces 

Q.ui  pro  nobis  natus 
Tulit  esse  tuus." 

The  sinner's  bonds  unbind, 

Our  evils  drive  away, 
Bring  light  unto  the  blind, 

For  grace  and  blessings  pray. 
Thyself  a  mother  show, 

May  he  receive  thy  prayer. 
Who  for  the  debts  we  owe, 

From  thee  would  breathe  our  air. 

In  the  office  of  Matins  in  Advent,  is  the  blessing,  "  Nos  cum  prole  pia,bene- 
dicat  Virgo  Maria,"  which  junction  of  the  two  names  in  this  way  must  shock 
every  true  Christian :  "  May  the  Virgin  Mary,  with  her  pious  Son,  bless  us." 
— Primer,  p.  75.  At  p.  99,  we  have  the  hymn  where  she  is  called  upon  to 
*'  protect  us  at  the  hour  of  death,"   and  she  is  called  "  Mother  of  Grace,'' 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  133 

approaches" — according  to  Damiani,  a  celebrated  divine  of  the 
eleventh  century — "she  approaches  the  golden  tribunal  of  divine 
majesty,  not  askings  but  commanding,  not  a  handmaid,  but  amis- 
tressJ'  We  are  taught  by  Albertus  Magnus,  that  "  Mary  prays 
as  a  daughter,  requests  as  a  sister,  and  commands  as  a  mother." 
Another  writer  informs  us  that  ''the  blessed  Virsfin,  for  the  sal- 
vation  of  her  supplicants,  can  not  only  supplicate  her  son  as  other 
saints  do,  but  also  by  her  maternal  authority  command  her  son." 
Therefore  the  Church  prays,  '  Monstra  te  esse  matrem  ;'  as  if 
saying  to  the  Virgin — supplicate  for  us  after  the  manner  of  a 
command  and  with  a  mother's  authority.  To  her  the  character- 
istic titles  of  God,  the  peculiar  offices  of  Christ,  and  the  distinc- 
tive work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  clearly  and  unblushingly  as- 
cribed in  approved  formularies  of  Papal  devotion,*     If  this  be 

"  Mother  of  Mercy."  "  Mater  gratiae,  mater  misericordiae,  tu  nos  ab  noste  pro- 
tege et  hora  mortis  suscipe."  At  p.  290,  I  find  this  recommendation  to  her: 
"  O  holy  Mary,  I  recommend  myself,  my  soul  and  body,  to  thy  blessed  trust  and 
singular  custody,  and  into  the  bosom  of  thy  mercy,  this  day  and  daily,  and  at 
the  hour  of  my  death  ;  and  I  commend  to  thee  all  my  hope  and  comfort,  all  my 
distresses  and  miseries,  my  life  and  the  end  thereof,  that  by  thy  most  holy 
intercession  and  merits,  all  my  works  may  be  directed  and  disposed,  according 
to  thine  and  thy  Son's  will,  amen."  My  readers  will  by  this  time  be  both  wea- 
ried and  disgusted,  but  I  umst  add  the  prayer  which  immediately  follows  :  "  O 
Mary,  Mother  of  God,  and  gracious  Virgin,  the  true  comforter  of  all  afflicted 
persons,  crying  to  thee  ;  by  that  great  joy  wherewith  thou  wert  comforted,  when 
thou  didst  know  our  Lord  .Tesus  was  gloriously  risen  from  the  dead,  be  a  com- 
fort to  my  soul,  and  vouchsafe  to  help  me  with  thine  and  God's  only  begotten 
Son,  in  that  last  day,  when  1  shall  rise  again  with  body  and  soul,  and  shall 
give  account  of  all  my  actions  ;  to  the  end  that  I  may  be  able  by  thee,  O  pious 
Mother  and  Virgin,  to  avoid  the  sentence  of  perpetual  damnation,  and  happily 
come  to  eternal  joys  with  all  the  elect  of  God,  Amen."  It  must  be  remembered, 
that  it  is  not  what  might  be  disclaimed  as  obsolete  canons,  or  mere  opinions  of 
the  schools,  (not  to  any  fooleries  of  a  St.  Buonaventure  or  Cardinal  Bona,)  that 
I  am  referring  the  reader,  but  to  what  is  the  actual  and  daily  practice  of  the 
Romanists  in  these  kingdoms.  I  can  add  even  the  express  recommendation  of 
one  of  their  bishops.  How  just  is  the  satire  implied  in  the  pithy  remark  of 
Bishop  Bull,  that  "  such  is  the  worship  given  to  the  blessed  Virgin  by  many  in 
the  Church  of  Rome,  that  they  deserve  to  be  called  Mariani  rather  than  Chris- 
tiani." — Serin,  on  Luke  i.  48,  49. 

*  In  addition  to  the  proofs  of  this  awful  accusation  furnished  in  the  preced- 
ing note,  I  appeal  to  the  Encyclical  Letter  of  the  Pope,  dated  August  15, 1832  : 


134  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

not  idolatry,  if  this  be  not  the  worship  of  the  creature  more  than 
the  Creator,  it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  meaning  of  terms. 
If  there  be  in  this  case  any  real  distinction  between  dovlua 
(dulia)  and  larQua  (latria),  the  dovXsia  (dulia)  is  rendered  to 
God,  and  the  laTQsin  (latria)  to  the  Virgin.  She  is  the  fountain 
of  grace,  and  He  is  the  obedient  servant  of  her  will. 

There  is  a  species  of  superstition  extravagantly  fostered  by 
veneration  for  the  images  and  relics  of  saints,  which  was  se- 
verely  condemned  by  the  pagan  philosophers  of  antiquity,  though 
extremely  common  among  their  countrymen,  and  is  as  warmly 
encouraged  by  the  bigoted  Priesthood  of  Rome.  It  consists  in 
the  practical  impression  that  there  is  no  grand  and  uniform  plan 
in  the  government  of  the  world,  founded  in  goodness,  adjusted 
in  wisdom,  and  accomplished  by  a  minute  and  controlling  provi- 
dence;  but  that  all  the  events  of  this  sublunary  state  are  single, 
insulated  acts,  arising  from  the  humor  of  different  beings, 
suggested,  for  the  most  part,  by  particular  emergencies,  and 
directed  generally  to  mercenary  ends.  That  it  secured  **  de- 
liverance from  unnecessary  terrors  and  exemption  from  false 
alarms,"  was  one  of  the  chief  commendations  of  the  lax  philoso- 
phy of  Epicurus,  in  which  religion  and  superstition  were,  con- 
trary to  the  opinions  of  the  most  distinguished  sages  of  antiquity, 
strangely  and  absurdly  confounded.  The  legitimate  fear  of  God 
was  involved  in  the  same  condemnation  and  exposed  to  the  same 
severity  of  ridicule,  with  the  fear  of  omens,  prodigies  and  por- 
tents.*    To  the  minds  of  the  people,  who  admitted  a  plurality  of 

"  We  send  you  a  letter  on  this  most  joyful  day,  on  which  we  celebrate  a 
solemn  festival  commemorative  of  the  triumph  of  the  most  holy  Virgin,  who  was 
taken  up  to  heaven  ;  that  she ,  whom  we  have  found  our  patroness  and  preserver 
in  all  our  greatest  calamities,  may  also  be  propitious  to  us  whilst  writing  to  you, 
and  guide  our  mind  by  her  heavenly  inspiration  to  such  counsels  as  shall  be 
most  wholesome  for  the  flock  of  Christ."  In  the  same  document,  the  same 
Pope  ascribes  to  this  same  creature  the  glorious  offices  of  Christ.  He  declares 
that  she  is  his  "  chief  confidence,"  "  his  only  ground  of  hope." 

§  Hence  Virgil  says  : 

"  Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
Atque  metus  omnes,  et  inexorabile  fatum 
Subjecit  pedibus,  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari." — Qeorg.  2,  490, 

Happy  the  man  who,  studying  nature's  laws, 
Thro'  known  effects  can  trace  the  secret  cause — 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  135 

gods,  possessed  of  different  attributes  and  intent  upon  opposite 
designs,  it  was  certainly  impossible  to  communicate  those  en- 
larged conceptions  of  a  harmonious  scheme  of  Providence,  car- 
ried on  by  the  power  of  a  superintending  mind,  which  are  only 
consistent  with  such  views  of  the  supremacy  of  one  being,  as  the 
philosophers  themselves  faintly  apprehended.  Polytheism  must 
always  be  the  parent  of  imaginary  terrors.  The  stability  and 
peace  of  a  well-ordered  mind,  that  unshaken  tranquillity  which 
is  neither  alarmed  at  the  flight  of  birds,  the  coruscations  of 
meteors  nor  eclipses  of  the  moon,  proceeds  from  a  firm  persua- 
sion that  there  is  one  God,  who  sitteth  in  the  heavens,  and  whose 
counsel  none  can  resist. 

To  suppose  that  different  portions  of  the  universe  are  assigned 
to  the  care  of  different  Divinities,  possessed  themselves  of  con- 
tradictory qualities,  and  ruling  their  departments  by  contradic- 
tory laws,  is  to  maintain,  if  the  happiness  of  men  consists  in 
their  favor,  or  is  at  all  dependent  upon  obedience  to  their  will, 
that  we  must  ever  be  the  victims  of  dread — unable  to  escape  the 
''barking  waves  of  Scylla,"  without  being  exposed  to  equal  dan- 
gers from  Charybdis.  Such  are  the  rivalries  and  jealousies 
among  these  conflicting  Deities,  such  the  variety  of  their  views 
and  the  discordance  of  their  plans,  that  the  patronage  of  one 
is  always  likely  to  secure  the  malediction  of  the  rest ;  and  if  one 
department  of  nature  be  rendered  subservient  to  our  comfort,  all 
other  elements  are  turned  in  fury  against  us.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, men's  lives  must  be  passed  in  continual  apprehen- 
sion. They  view  nature,  not  as  a  connected  whole,  conducted 
by  general  laws,  in  which  all  the  parts  have  a  mutual  relation  to 
each  other,  but  as  broken  into  fragments  by  opposing  powers — 
made  up  of  the  territories  of  hostile  princes — in  which  every  event 

His  mind  possessing  in  a  quiet  state, 
Fearless  of  fortune  and  resigned  to  Fate  ! 

Speaking  of  religion,  Lucretius  says : 

"  Quae  caput  a  ca'li  regionibus  ostendebat, 

Ilorribili  super  aspectu  mortalibus  instans." — 1,  65. 

RIankind long  the  tyrant  power 

Of  superstition  swayed,  uplifting  proud 
Her  head  to  heaven,  and  with  horrific  limbs 
Brooding  o'er  earth. — Ooode^s  Lticrctiud. 


136  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

is  a  declaration  of  war,  every  appearance,  whether  common  or 
accidental,  a  divine  prognostic.  To  appease  the  anger,  and  to 
secure  the  approbation  of  such  formidable  enemies,  will  lead  to  a 
thousand  devices  of  servility  and  ignorance.  Every  phenomenon 
will  be  watched  with  the  intensest  solicitude — the  meteors  of 
heaven,  the  thunders  in  the  air,  the  prodigies  of  earth,  will  all  be 
pressed  into  the  service  of  religion,  and  anxiously  questioned  on 
the  purposes  of  the  gods.  Charms,  sorcery  and  witchcraft,  the 
multiplied  forms  of  divination  and  augury,  servile  flattery  and  de- 
basing adulation,  must  be  the  abundant  harvest  of  evils  which  is 
reaped  from  that  ignorance  of  Divine  Providence  and  the  sta- 
bility of  nature,  which  is  involved  in  the  acknowledgment  of  a 
multitude  of  gods,  Epicurus  distinctly  perceived  the  folly  of 
imaginary  terrors ;  but  in  suggesting  a  remedy  overlooked  the 
fact  that  the  cause  was  not  to  be  found,  as  he  evidently  thought, 
in  the  admission  of  Providence,*  but  in  its  virtual  denial  by  as- 
cribing the  course  of  the  world  to  the  distracting  counsels  of  in- 
numerable agents.  Just  conceptions  of  Providence  presuppose 
the  absolute  unity  of  the  Supreme  Being ;  and  polytheism  is  no 
less  fatal  to  the  interests  of  piety  than  atheism  itself. 

That  the  Church  of  Rome  encourages  that  form  of  supersti- 
tion which  heathen  philosophers  had  the  perspicacity  to  con- 
demn, which  heathen  poets,  such  as  Horace,  Virgil,  and  Lucretius, 
endeavored  to  escape  by  fleeing  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  irre- 
ligion,  and  which  the  very  constitutiort  of  our  mind  rebukes  in 
its  instinctive  belief  of  the  uniformity  of  nature,  is  too  apparent 
to  need   much  illustration^.     The  account  which   Plutarch  has 


*  "  Caetera,  quae  fieri  in  terris  cceloque  tuentur 

Mortales,  pavidis  cum  pendent  mentibus  saepe, 
Efficiunt  animos  humiles  formidine  divum, 
Depressosque  premunt  ad  terram  ;  propterea  quod, 
Ignorantia  causarum  conferre  deorum 
Cogit  ad  imperium  res,  et  concedere  regnum." — [6,  49. 

Whate'er  in  heaven 

In  earth  man  sees  mysterious,  shakes  his  mind, 

With  sacred  awe  o'erwhehns  him,  and  his  soul 

Bows  to  the  dust ;  the  cause  of  things  concealed 

Once  from  his  vision,  instant  to  the  gods 

All  empire  he  transfers,  all  rule  supreme  ; 

And  doubtful  whence  they  spring,  with  headlong  haste 

Calls  them  the  workmanship  of  powers  divine. — Id. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  137 

given  of  the  religious  excesses  of  his  countrymen,  may  be  applied 
with  equal  justice,  but  with  intenser  severity,  to  the  countless 
devices  of  Rome.  The  same  absurd  and  uncouth  adorations, 
rollings  in  the  mire,  dippings  in  the  sea — the  same  contortions  of 
the  face,  and  indecent  postures  on  the  earth — the  same  charms, 
sulphurations  and  ablutions,  which  he  indignantly  charges  upon 
the  "  Greeks,  inventors  of  barbarian  ills,"  are  carried  to  a  still 
more  extravagant  extent  among  the  pupal  inventors  of  worse  than 
barbarian  enormities.  The  people  sit  in  darkness  and  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  The  heavens  to  them  are  redun- 
dant with  omens,  the  earth  is  fraught  with  prodigies,  the  church 
is  a  magazine  of  charms,  and  the  priests  are  potent  and  irresisti- 
ble wizards,  who  rule  the  course  of  nature  and  govern  the  des- 
tinies of  men  by  the  bones,  images  and  fragments,  real  or  fictitious, 
of  the  slumbering  dead.  In  the  Treasure  of  Exorcisms,  the  Ro- 
man Ritual,  and  the  Flagellum  Dacmonum,  we  have  minute  and 
specific  directions  for  casting  Devils  out  of  the  possessed,  and  for 
extracting  from  these  lying  spirits  a  veracious  testimony  to  the 
distinctive  doctrines  of  the  papacy.*  The  holy  water,  the  pas- 
chal wax,  the  consecrated  oil,  medals,  swords,  bells,  and  roses, 
hallowed  upon  the  Sunday  called  La^tare  Jerusalem,  are  charged 
with  the  power  of  conferring  temporal  benedictions  and  averting 
spiritual  calamities.  The  Agnus  Dei  is  a  celebrated  charm  in 
the  annals  of  Romish  sorcery .t     It  possesses  the  power  of  ex- 

*  The  story  of  the  exorcising  of  Martha  Brosser,  A.  D.  1599,  may  be  found 
in  the  history  of  Thuanus,  lib.  cxiii.  The  reader  will  find  it  an  admirable  spe- 
cimen of  the  black  art. 

t  Urban  V.  sent  three  Agnos  Dei  to  the  Greek  Emperor,  with  these  verses: 
"  Balsam,  pure  wax  and  chrism-liquor  clear 
Rlake  up  this  precious  lamb  I  send  thee  here. 
All  lightening  it  dispels  and  each  ill  sprite  ; 
Remedies  sin  and  makes  the  heart  contrite  ; 
Even  as  the  blood  that  Christ  for  us  did  shed. 
It  helps  the  child-bed's  pains  and  gives  good  speed 
Unto  the  birth.     Great  gifts  it  still  doth  win 
To  all  that  wear  it  and  ihat  worthy  bin. 
It  quells  the  rage  of  fire,  and  cleanly  bore, 
It  brings  from  shipwreck  safely  to  the  shore." 
The  forms  for  blessing  holy  water  and  the  other  implements  of  papal  magic 
and  blasphemy,  may  be  found  in  the  Book  of  Holy  Ceremonies.     I  had  marked 
out  some  of  the   prayers  to  be   copied,  but  I  have  already  furnished  sufficient 
materials  to  establish  the  position  of  the  text. 

7* 


138  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

pelling  demons,  securing  the  remission  of  venial  sins,  of  healing 
diseases  of  the  body  and  promoting  the  health  of  the  soul.  Holy 
water  has  also  achieved  stupendous  wonders — broken  limbs  have 
been  restored  by  its  efficacy,  and  insanity  itself  has  yielded  to  its 
power.*  Whole  flocks  and  herds  are  not  unfrequently  brought 
to  the  Priest  to  receive  his  blesssing,  and  we  have  approved  for- 
mularies for  charming  the  cattle  and  putting  a  spell  upon  the 
possessions  of  the  faithful.  Rome  is  indeed  a  powerful  enchant- 
ress. Even  the  sacraments  become  Circaean  mixtures  in  her 
hands,  dispensing  mysterious  effects  to  all  who  receive  them 
from  her  Priestly  magicians  ;  being  indeed  a  substitute  for  vir- 
tue, a  complete  exemption  from  the  necessity  of  grace.! 

The  type  of  character  and  religious  opinion,  the  pervading 
tone  of  sentiment  and  feeling,  which  any  system  produces  on  the 
mass  of  its  votaries,  is  a  just  criterion  of  its  real  tendencies.  The 
influence  of  a  sect  is  not  to  be  exclusively  determined  from 
abstract  statements  or  controversial  expositions,  but  from  the 
fruits  which  it  naturally  brings  forth  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of 
those  who  belong  to  it.  The  application  of  this  test  is  particu- 
larly just  in  the  case  of  Romanism,  since  the  Priests  possess 
unlimited  control  over  the  minds  and  consciences  of  their  sub- 
jects. They  are  consequently  responsible  for  the  moral  condi- 
tion, the  religious  observances,  the  customs  and  opinions  of 
papal  communities.  Hence  the  system  of  Rome,  in  its  practical 
operations,  can  be  better  ascertained  from  the  spiritual  state  of 
the  mass  of  the  people,  than  from  the  briefs  of  Popes,  the  canons 
of  Councils,  and  the  decisions  of  Doctors.     It  is  seen  among  the 

*  See  the  dialogues  of  St.  Gregory  and  Bede.  St.  Fortunatus  restored  a 
broken  thigh  with  holy  water ;  St.  Malachias  brought  a  madman  to  his  senses 
by  the  same  prescription  ;  and  St.  Hilarion  healed  divers  of  the  sick  with  holy 
bread  and  oil.  These  are  only  specimens,  and  very  moderate  ones,  of  the  le- 
gends of  the  Saints.  The  magic  of  Rome  tunis  the  course  of  nature  into  a 
theatre  of  wonders. 

t  "  Upon  the  Sacraments  themselves,"  says  Bishop  Taylor,  "  they  are  taught 
to  rely  with  so  little  of  moral  and  virtuous  dispositions,  that  the  efficacy  of  one 
is  made  to  lessen  the  necessity  of  the  other ;  and  the  sacraments  are  taught  to 
be  so  effectual  by  an  inherent  virtue,  that  they  are  not  so  much  made  the  in- 
struments of  virtue,  as  the  suppletory  ;  not  so  much  to  increase  as  to  make 
amends  for  the  want  of  grace." — Works,  vol.  x.  p.  241. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSS liD    AND    REFUTED.  139 

people  embodied  in  the  life;  its  legitimate  tendencies  are  re- 
duced to  the  test  of  actual  experience ;  we  know  what  it  is  by 
beholding  what  it  does.  Tried  by  this  standard,  it  seems  to  me 
that  Romanism  cannot  be  regarded  in  any  other  light  than  as  a 
debasing  system  of  idolatrous  superstition,  in  which  the  hopes  of 
mankind  are  made  to  depend  upon  the  charms  of  magic  and 
the  etfects  of  sorcery,  instead  of  the  glorious  principles  of  the 
doctrine  of  Christ.  It  is  indeed  a  kingdom  of  darkness,  in  which 
the  Prince  of  the  power  of  the  air  sits  enthroned  in  terror ;  en- 
velopes the  people  in  the  blackness  of  spiritual  night,  and  shrouds 
their  minds  in  the  grim  repose  of  death.  Where  the  raven 
wings  of  superstition  and  idolatry  overshadow  a  land,  the  spirit 
of  enterprise  is  uniformly  broken,  the  energies  of  the  soul  are 
stifled  and  suppressed,  and  the  noblest  affections  of  the  heart  are 
chilled,  blighted,  and  perverted  by  the  malignant  influence  of 
error.  The  picture  which  Taylor  draws  of  the  papal  population 
of  Ireland,*  which  Townsend    gives  of  the   bigoted  peasantry 

*  I  give  a  single  speciDieu  of  the  abject  superstition  of  the  Papists,  upon 
the  authority  of  .feremy  Taylor.  "■  But  we  have  observed  amongst  the  gene- 
rality of  the  Irish,  such  a  declension  of  Christianity,  so  great  a  credulity  to 
believe  every  superstitious  story,  such  confidence  in  vanity,  such  groundless 
pertinacity,  such  vicious  lives,  so  little  sense  of  true  religion  and  the  fear  of 
God,  so  much  care  to  obey  the  priests  and  so  little  to  obey  God,  such  intolerable 
ignorance,  such  fond  oaths  and  manners  of  swearing,  thinking  themselves  more 
obliged  by  swearing  on  the  Mass-book  than  the  four  Gospels,  and  St.  Patrick's 
Mass-book  more  than  any  new  one  ;  swearing  by  their  father's  soul,  by  their 
gossip's  hand,  by  other  things  which  are  the  product  of  those  many  tales  that 
are  told  them  ;  their  not  knowing  upon  what  account  they  refuse  to  come  to 
Church,  but  now  they  are  old,  and  never  did,  or  their  countrymen  do  not,  or 
their  fathers,  or  grandfathers,  never  did,  or  that  their  ancestors  were  priests 
and  they  will  not  alter  from  their  religion  ;  and  after  all  they  can  give  no 
account  of  their  religion,  what  it  is  ;  only  they  believe  as  their  priests  bid 
them,  and  go  to  mass,  wliich  they  understand  not,  and  reckon  their  beads  to 
tell  the  number  and  the  tale  of  their  prayers,  and  abstain  from  eggs  and  flesh 
in  Lent,  and  visit  St.  Patrick's  well,  and  leave  pins  and  ribands,  yarn  or  thread 
in  their  holywells,  and  pray  to  God,  St.  Mary,  St.  Patrick,  St.  Columbanus,and 
St.  Bridget,  and  desire  to  be  buried  with  St.  Frances'  cord  about  them,  and  to 
fast  on  Saturdays,  in  honor  of  our  lady.  *  *  *  I  shall  give  one  particular 
instance  of  their  miserable  superstition  and  blindness.  I  was  lately,  within 
a  few  months,  very  much  troubled  with  petitions  and  earnest  requests  for 
restoring  a  bell,  which  a  person  of  quality  had  in  his  hands  at  the  time  of,  and 


140  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

of  Spain — the  condition  of  the  church  in  Silesia,  Italy,  Portugal 
and  South  America,  disclose  the  features  of  the  papacy  in  their 
true  light,  and  demonstrate,  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  that 
it  is  a  system  of  the  same  sort,  founded  in  the  same  principles, 
and  aiming  at  the  same  results  with  the  monstrous  mythology  of 
the  Hindoos. 

They  are  ennobled  by  none  of  those  sublime  and  elevated 
views  of  the  moral  government  of  God,  and  the  magnificent 
eeonomy  of  His  grace  through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which 
alone  can  impart  tranquillity  to  the  conscience,  stability  to  the 
character,  and  consistency  to  the  life.  They  recognize  God  in 
none  of  the  operations  of  His  hands — Priests,  saints,  images  and 
relics,  beads,  bells,  oil  and  water  so  completely  engross  their 
attention,  and  contract  their  conceptions,  that  they  can  rise  to 
nothing  higher  in  the  scale  of  excellence,  than  the  empty  page- 
antry of  ceremonial  pomp,  or  dream  of  nothing  better  in  the  way 
of  felicity  than  the  solemn  farce  of  sacerdotal  benediction.  Their 
hopes  are  vanity  and  their  food  is  dust.     To  the  true  Christian, 


ever  since,  the  late  rebellion.  I  could  not  guess  at  the  reasons  of  their  so  gieat 
and  violent  importunity,  but  told  the  petitioners  if  they  could  prove  that  bell  to 
be  theirs,  the  gentleman  was  willing  to  pay  the  full  value  of  it,  though  he  had 
no  obligation  to  do  so,  that  I  know  of,  but  charity.  But  this  was  so  far  from 
satisfying  them,  that  still  the  importunity  increased,  which  made  me  diligently 
to  inquire  into  the  secret  of  it.  The  first  cause  I  found,  was  that  a  dying 
person  in  the  parish,  desired  to  have  it  rung  before  him  to  church,  and  pretend- 
ed he  could  not  die  in  peace  if  it  were  denied  him  ;  and  that  the  keeping 
of  that  bell  did  anciently  belong  to  that  family,  from  father  to  son  :  but  because 
this  seemed  nothing  but  a  fond  and  unreasonable  superstition,  I  inquired  far- 
ther, and  found  at  last,  that  they  believed  this  bell  came  from  heaven,  and  that 
it  used  to  be  carried  from  place  to  place,  and  to  end  controveries  by  oath, 
which  the  worst  men  "durst  not  violate  if  they  swore  upon  that  bell,  and  the 
best  men  amongst  them  durst  not  but  believe  him  ;  that  if  this  bell  was  nmg 
before  the  coi-pse  to  the  grave,  it  would  help  him  out  of  purgatory  ;  and  that, 
therefore,  when  any  one  died,  the  friends  of  the  deceased  did,  whilst  the  bell 
was  in  their  possession,  hire  it  for  the  behoof  of  their  dead,  and  that  by  this 
means,  that  family  was  in  part  maintained.  I  was  troubled  to  see  under  what 
spirit  of  delusion  these  poor  souls  do  lie,  how  infinitely  their  credulity  is  abused, 
how  certainly  they  beheve  in  trifles  and  perfectly  rely  on  vanity,  and  how  little 
they  regard  the  truths  of  God,  and  how  not  at  all  they  drink  of  the  waters  of 
salvation." — Works,  vol.  x.  p.  121,  seg. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCIJSSKD    AND    REI-UTED.  141 

they  present  a  scene  as  melancholy  and  moving,  as  that  which 
stirred  the  spirit  of  the  Apostle  when  he  beheld  the  citizens  of 
Athens  wholly  given  to  idolatry;  in  the  possession  of  the  strong 
man  armed,  it  requires  something  mightier  than  argument, 
stronger  than  the  light  of  truth,  to  break  the  spell  of  spiritual 
enchantment  which  leads  them  on  to  death,  to  dissipate  the  deep 
delusions  of  priestly  impoi-ture  which  are  sealing  their  souls  for 
hell.  The  mind  recoils  at  the  thought  of  the  terrible  account 
which  their  blind  guides  who  have  acted  the  part  of  mad  diviners, 
must  render  in  the  day  of  final  retribution,  when  the  blood  of 
countless  souls  shall  be  required  at  their  hands.  The  Priests  of 
other  superstitions  may  plead,  to  some  extent,  irremediable  igno- 
rance for  their  errors,  idolatries  and  crimes ;  the  way  of  right- 
eousness had  never  been  revealed  to  them,  but  the  Priests  of 
Rome  have  no  cloak  for  their  wickedness;  they  have  deliberately 
extinguished  the  light  of  revelation — have  sinned  wilfully  after 
they  had  received  the  knowledge  of  the  truth — have  insulted  the 
Saviour  and  despised  the  Spirit ;  betrayed  the  one,  like  Judas, 
with  a  kiss,  and  reduced  the  other  to  a  mere  magician,  and  must 
consequentlv  expect  the  severity  of  judgment  at  the  hands  of  the 
Almighty  Disposer  of  events. 

The  pagan  tendencies  of  Rome  appear,  in  the  last  place, 
from  her  substitution  of  a  vain  and  imposing  ritual,  copied  from 
the  models  of  her  heathen  ancestors,  for  the  pure  and  spiritual 
worship  of  the  Gospel.  The  Saviour  has  told  us  that  God  re- 
quires the  homage  of  the  heart,  and  that  all  our  services,  in 
order  to  be  accepted  by  Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do,  must  be 
rendered  in  the  name  of  the  Son,  by  the  grace  of  the  Spirit,  and 
according  to  the  requirements  of  the  written  word.  To  worship 
God  in  spirit  and  truth,  is  to  bring  to  the  employment  that  know- 
ledge of  His  name,  that  profound  veneration  for  His  character, 
that  cordial  sympathy  with  the  moral  perfections  of  His  nature, 
which  presuppose  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  economy 
of  His  grace  through  Jesus  Christ;  the  renovation  of  the  heart 
by  the  effectual  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  a  constant 
spirit  of  compliance  with  all  his  statutes  and  ordinances.  It  is 
indeed  the  spirit  o^  love  Viud  o^  obedience,  and  both  necessarily 
suppose  that  knoioledgc  which  is  identified  with  faith,  and  pro- 


142  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

ceeds  from  the  disclosures  of  the  written  word.  Whatever  is 
not  required  is  not  obedience,  and  therefore  cannot  be  worship, 
which  must  always  be  measured  by  the  will  of  God.  Upon  com- 
paring the  worship  which  Rome  prescribes,  with  that  which  the 
Gospel  requires,  they  will  be  found  to  differ  in  every  essential 
element  of  acceptable  homage.  The  Gospel  confines  our  wor- 
ship exclusively  to  God — Rome  scatters  it  upon  a  thousand  ob- 
jects whom  she  has  exalted  to  the  rank  of  Divinities.  The  Gos- 
pel directs  that  all  our  services  should  be  oifered  exclusively  in 
the  name  of  Christ — Rome  has  as  many  intercessors  as  gods, 
and  as  many  mediators  as  Priests.  The  Gospel  requires  the 
affections  of  the  heart,  purified  and  prompted  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
— Rome  prescribes  beads  and  genuflexions,  scourging  and  pil- 
grimages, fasts  and  penances,  and  particularly  the  magic  of  what 
she  calls  sacraments,  which  are  an  excellent  substitute  for  grace. 
The  object  which  the  Gospel  proposes  is  to  restore  the  sinner  to 
communion  with  God,  to  make  him,  indeed,  a  spiritual  man, 
and  hence  the  appeals  which  it  makes  to  the  assistance  of  the 
senses  are  few  and  simple — the  object  of  Rom.e  is  to  awaken 
emotions  of  mysterious  awe,  which  shall  ultimately  redound  to 
the  advantage  of  the  priesthood ;  and  hence  her  services  are  ex- 
clusively directed  to  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  fancy.  If  she  suc- 
ceeds in  reaching  the  imagination,  and  produces  a  due  venera- 
tion for  the  gorgeous  solemnities  which  pass  before  us,  she  has 
compassed  her  design,  and  excited  the  only  species  of  religious 
emotion  with  which  she  is  acquainted.  The  difference  between 
spiritual  affections  and  sentimental  impressions,  which  is  indeed 
the  difference  between  faith  and  sense,  is  utterly  unknown  to 
the  blinded  Priesthood  of  the  papal  apostacy.  Imposing  festi- 
vals, and  magnificent  processions,  symbols  and  ceremonies,  liba- 
tions and  sacrifices — these  proclaim  the  poverty  of  her  spirit,  the 
vanity  of  her  mind:  they  are  sad  memorials  of  "religion  lying 
in  state,  surrounded  with  the  silent  pomp  of  death." 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  143 

LETTER   IX. 

Papal  Infallibility  proved  to  be  unfriendly  to  civil  government. 

The  extravagant  pretensions  of  the  Romish  sect  to  the 
Divine  prerogative  of  infallibility,  are  not  only  fatal  to  the  inter- 
ests of  truth,  morality  and  religion,  but  equally  destructive  of  the 
rights  of  magistrates,  and  the  ends  for  which  governments  were 
instituted.  To  define  the  connexion  which  ought  to  subsist 
between  church  and  state,  to  prescribe  their  mutual  relations 
and  subserviencies,  and  mark  their  points  of  separation  and  con- 
tact, are  problems  of  polity  which  have  tasked  the  resources  of 
the  mightiest  minds,  and  which  their  highest  powers  have  been 
inadequate  to  solve.  The  difficulties,  however,  have  not  arisen 
from  the  inherent  nature  of  the  subject,  but  from  the  force  of 
ancient  institutions  and  early  prejudices  to  blind  and  enslave  the 
understanding.  The  masterly  abilities  of  Warburton  were  cer- 
tainly competent  to  the  discussion  of  this  or  any  other  subject ; 
the  zeal  of  eloquence  and  power  of  argument  with  which  he  has 
presented  the  importance  of  religion  as  conducing  to  the  success 
and  stability  of  the  state,  are,  perhaps,  irresistible  ;  yet  the  atten- 
tive reader  will  perceive  that  none  of  his  reasonings,  however 
7manstoerabbj  they  prove  the  value  of  the  church  and  the  need  of 
its  aid,  establish  the  necessity  of  Vi  federal  alliance.  The  gratui- 
tous assumption  which  vitiates  the  logic  of  this  celebrated  book, 
is  the  ancient  opinion  that  Christianity  could  not  contribute  its 
influence  to  the  peace  and  order  of  society,  without  being  sup- 
jjorted  by  the  state.  "  The  props  and  buttresses  of  secular 
autliority  "  were  conceived  to  be  essential  not  only  to  the  pros- 
perity but  also  to  the  being  of  the  church  ;  as  if,  in  the  language 
of  Milton,  '*  the  church  were  a  vine  in  this  respect,  that  she  can- 
not subsist  without  clasping  about  the  elm  of  worldly  strength 
and  felicity."  It  is  found  from  experience,  however,  and  might 
be  deduced  from  the  nature  of  its  principles,  that  Christianity  is 
then  most  powerful,  and  sustains  the  government  by  its  strongest 
sanctions,  when  it  stands  alone,  commending  itself  to  every  man's 
conscience,  by  truth  and  purity.     Alliance  with  the  state  cor- 


144  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

rupts  and  weakens  spiritual  authority — it  debases  the  church 
into  a  secular  institution,  makes  emolument  and  splendor  more 
important  objects  than  righteousness  and  truth, — defeats  the  ends 
for  which  it  has  been  instituted — and,  instead  of  adding  weight  to 
the  laws  of  man,  it  detracts  from  the  authority  of  the  laws  of 
God.  Church  and  state,  distinct  as  they  are  in  their  offices  and 
ends,  clothed  with  powers  of  a  different  species,  and  supported 
by  sanctions  essentially  unlike,  fulfil  their  respective  courses  with 
less  confusion  and  disturbance,  when  each  is  restrained  within 
its  own  appropriate  jurisdiction.  The  harmony  of  the  spheres  is 
preserved  by  the  regularity  and  order  with  which  they  revolve  in 
their  appointed  orbits.  The  protection  of  life,  property  and 
person,  is  the  leading  end  for  which  governments  were  instituted 
— the  restoration  of  man  to  the  image  of  God,  through  faith  in 
the  scheme  of  supernatural  revelation,  is  the  grand  purpose  for 
which  the  church  was  established.  The  state  views  man  as  a 
member  of  society,  and  deals  exclusively  with  external  acts — the 
church  regards  him  as  the  creature  of  God,  and  demands  integrity 
in  the  inward  parts.  The  state  secures  the  interests  of  time — 
the  church  provides  for  a  Messed  immortality ;  the  state  is  con- 
cerned about  the  bodies  of  men — the  church  is  solicitous  for  the 
deathless  soul.  Racks,  gibbets,  dungeons  and  tortures  are  the 
props  and  muniments  of  secular  authority — truth  and  love,  "  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,"  and  "  the  cords  of  a  man,"  are  the  mighty 
weapons  of  the  spiritual  host. 
^  To  maintain,  with  a  recent  writer,  whose  work  is  far  inferior 
in  compactness  and  precision  to  the  treatise  of  Warburton,  that 
one  of  the  distinctive  ends  of  government  is  to  propagate  the 
truths  of  religion,  is  to  destroy  the  church  as  a  separate  institu- 
tion, and  make  it  an  appendage  to  the  state.  The  administra- 
tion of  religion  under  this  view,  becomes  as  completely  a  part 
of  the  government,  as  courts  of  justice  or  halls  of  legislation.  In 
support  of  this  extravagant  Erastianism,  it  is  gravely  maintained 
that  the  state  is  really  and  truly  a  person — the  proper  subject  of 
moral  obligation,  and,  therefore,  bound  like  every  other  person, 
to  profess  a  religion.  The  legitimate  consequence  M-ould  seem 
to  be,  if  the  state,  as  such,  is  capable  of  exercising  religious  af- 
fections, that  it  must  also  experience,  in  a  future  life,  the  rewards 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  145 

of  obedience,  or  the  punishment  of  sin.  Those  who  huve  been 
accustomed  to  regard  religion  as  a  matter  of  personal  faith  and 
obedience,  appealing  to  the  consciences  of  private  individuals, 
and  not  to  the  authority  of  kings  and  rulers,  are  slow  to  com- 
prehend the  spiritual  birth  of  nations,  the  salvation  of  organized 
communities,  or  their  eternal  perdition  for  impenitent  hardness 
of  heart. 

The  doctrine  of  Rome,  on  the  mutual  relations  of  the  tempo- 
ral and  spiritual  power,  leads  to  consequences  as  fatal  to  the 
liberty  of  states,  as  those  of  Warburton  or  Gladstone  in  the  in- 
dependence, purity,  and  efficiency  of  the  church.  Three  diffe- 
rent views  have  been  taken  of  this  subject  by  distinguished 
writers  in  the  papal  communion.     The  Canonists*  and  Jesuitsf 

*  For  an  amusing  effort  to  effort  to  evade  the  claims  of  the  Canon  law, 
vide  Gibert,vol.  ii.  pp.  511, 12. 

t  The  doctrine  seems  to  be  embodied  in  the  Jesuit's  oath,  which  the 
learned  Archbishop  Usher  drew  from  undoubted  records  in  Paris  and  published 
to  the  world.  In  that  oath  it  is  asserted  that  the  Pope,  by  virtue  of  the  keys 
given  to  his  holiness  by  Jesus  Christ,  hath  power  to  depose  heretical  kings, 
princes,  states,  commonwealths  and  governments,  all  being  illegal,  without  his 
sacred  confirmation ;  and  consequently  all  allegiance  is  renounced  to  any 
such  rulers.     The  entire  document  is  as  follows : 

I,  A.  B.,  now  in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary, 
the  blessed  Michael  the  Archangel,  the  blessed  St.  John  Baptist,  the  holy  apos- 
tles St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  the  saints  and  sacred  host  of  heaven,  and  to 
you  my  ghostly  father,  do  declare  from  my  heart,  without  mental  reservation, 
that  his  holiness  pope  Urban,  is  Christ's  vicar-general,  and  is  the  true  and  only 
head  of  the  Catholic  or  universal  church  throughout  the  earth  ;  and  that  by 
the  virtue  of  the  keys  of  binding  and  loosing  given  to  his  holiness  by  my  Sav- 
iour Jesus  Christ,  he  hath  power  to  depose  heretical  kings,  princes,  states,  com- 
monwealths, and  governments,  all  being  illegal  without  his  sacred  confirmation, 
and  that  they  may  be  safely  destroyed  ;  therefore,  to  the  utmost  of  my  power,  I 
shall  and  will  defend  this  doctrine  and  his  holiness'  rights  and  customs  against 
all  usurpers  of  the  heretical  authority  whatsoever,  especially  against  the  now 
pretended  authority  and  church  of  England,  and  all  adherents,  in  regard  that 
they  and  she  be  usurpal  and  heretical,  opposing  the  sacred  mother  church  of 
Rome.  I  do  renounce  and  disown  any  allegiance  as  due  to  any  heretical  king, 
prince,  or  state,  named  Protestant  ;  or  obedience  to  any  of  their  inferior  magis- 
trates or  officers.  I  do  further  declare,  that  the  doctrines  of  the  church  of  Eng- 
land, of  the  Calvinists,  Huguenots,  and  of  others  of  the  name  of  Protestants,  to 
be  damnable,  and  they  themselves  are  damned,  and  to  be  damned,  that  will 
not  forsake  the  same.  I  do  further  declare,  that  I  will  help,  assist,  and  advise 
all,  or  any  of  his  holiness'  agents,  in  any  place  wherever  I  shall  be,  in  England, 


146  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

for  the  most  part,  carrying  out  the  idea  that  the  Pope  is  the 
Vicar  of  God  upon  earth,  clothe  him  with  all  the  plenitude  of 
power,  in  relation  to  sublunary  things,  which  belongs  to  Deity 
Himself.  It  is  his  prerogative  to  fix  the  boundaries  of  nations,  to 
appoint  the  habitations  of  the  people,  and  to  set  over  them  the 
basest  of  men.  From  Him  kings  derive  their  authority  to  reign,  and 
princes  to  decree  justice — upon  him  the  rulers  and  judges  of  the 
earth  are  dependent  alike  for  the  sceptre  and  the  sword — it  is  his, 
like  Jupiter,  in  Homer,  "  to  shake  his  ambrosial  curls  and  give 
the  nod — the  stamp  of  fate,  the  sanction  of  a  God."  In  the 
sentence  against  Frederick  H.,  passed  in  the  council  of  Lyons, 
which,  according  to  Bellarmin,  represented,  without  doubt,  the 
universal  church,  this  extravagant  pretension  to  absolute  power  is 
assumed.*     At  the  close  of  the  second  session  of  the  fifth  coun- 

Scotland,  and  in  Ireland,  or  in  any  other  territory  or  kingdom  I  shall  come 
to  ;  and  do  my  utmost  to  extirpate  the  heretical  Protestants'  doctrine,  and  to 
destroy  all  their  pretended  powers  regal  or  otherwise.  I  do  further  promise 
and  declare,  that  notwithstanding  I  am  dispensed  to  assume  any  religion  heret- 
ical for  the  propagating  of  the  mother  church's  interest,  to  keep  secret  and  priv- 
ate all  her  agents'  counsels  from  time  to  time,  as  they  intrust  me,  and  not  to 
divulge,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  word,  writing,  or  circumstance,  whatsoever  ;  but 
to  execute  all  that  shall  be  proposed,  given  in  charge,  or  discovered  unto  me,  by 
you  my  ghostly  father,  or  by  any  of  this  sacred  convent.  All  which,  I,  A.  B., 
do  swear  by  the  blessed  Trinity,  and  blessed  sacrament  which  I  now  am  to 
receive,  to  perform  and  on  my  part  to  keep  inviolably  :  and  do  call  all  the 
heavenly  and  glorious  host  of  heaven  to  witness  these  my  real  intentions,  to 
keep  this  my  oath.  In  testimony  hereof,  I  take  this  most  holy  and  blessed 
sacrament  of  the  eucharist :  and  witness  the  same  further  with  my  hand  and 

seal  in  the  face  of  this  holy  convent,  this day  of ,  An.  Dom.,  &c." 

*  "  Nos  itaque  super  praemissis  et  compluribus  aliis  ejus  nefandis  excessibus, 
cum  fratribus  nostris,  et  sacro  concilio  deliberatione  praehabita  diligenti,  cum 
Jesu  Christi  vices  licet  immeriti  teneamus  in  terris,  nobisque  in  beati  Petri 
apostoli  persona  sit  dictum :  '  Quodcumque  Hgaveris  super  terram  &.C.'  Me- 
moratum  principem,  qui  se  imperio  et  regnis  omnique  honore  ac  dignitate 
reddidat  tarn  indignum,  quique  propter  suas  iniquitates  a  Deo  ne  regnet  vel  im- 
peret  est  abjectus,  suis  ligatum  peccatis,  et  abjectum,  omnique  honore  et  dignitate 
privatum  a  Domino  ostendimus,  denunciamus,  ac  nihilo  minus  sententiando 
privamus ;  omnes,  qui  ei  juramento  fidelitatis  tenentur  adstricti,  a  juramento 
hujusmodi  perpetuo  absolventes  ;  autoritate  apostolica  firmiter  inhibendo,  ne 
quisquam  de  caetero  sibi  tamquam  imperatori  vel  regi  pareat  vel  intendat,  et 
decernendo  quoslibet,  qui  deinceps  ei  velut  imperatori  aut  regi  consilium  vel 
auxilium  prsestitirent  seu  favorem,  ipso  facto  excommunicationis  vinculo  subja- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  H7 

cil  of  Lateran,  an  oration  was  delivered  by  Cajetan,  which 
abounds  in  fulsome  adulation  of  the  Pope,  representing  him  as 
the  Vica?^  of  the  Oninipotent  God,  invested  alike  with  temporal 
power  and  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  exhorting  him,  in  blas- 
phemous application  of  the  language  of  the  Psalmist,  to  "  gird 
his  sword  upon  his  thigh  and  proceed  to  reign  over  all  the 
powers  of  the  earth.* 

cere.  Illi  autum  ad  quos  in  eodem  imperio  imperatoris  spectat  electio,  eligant 
libere  successorem.  De  praefato  viro  Siciliae  regno  providere  curabimus,  cum 
corundum  fratrumnostrorum  consilio,sicut  viderimus  expedire." — Labb.  Concil. 
t.  xi.  p.  645. 

We,  therefore,  on  account  of  the  aforesaid  and  numerous  other  abominable 
excesses  of  this  man,  do,  with  our  brethren,  and  the  sacred  council,  after  diligent 
deliberation  (seeing  we,  though  undeserving,  hold  the  place  of  Jesus  Christ 
on  earth,  and  that  it  was  said  to  us  in  the  person  of  the  blessed  apostle  Peter 
"  Whosoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth,  &,c."),  declare  the  said  Prince,  who  has 
proved  himself  so  unworthy  of  all  rule,  power,  and  dignity,  to  be  bound  under 
his  sins  and  an  outcast,  and  deprived  by  the  Lord  of  all  honor  and  dignity  • 
and  all  who  are  bound  to  him  by  oaths  of  fealty,  we  forever  absolve  from  such 
oaths ;  and,  by  our  apostolical  authority,  we  strictly  forbid  any  from  obeyinty 
him  as  emperor  or  king  ;  and  all  such  as  shall  thus  obey  him,  or  show  him  anv 
aid  or  favor,  are  rendered,  by  that  act,  excommunicate  ; — and  they  to  whom 
the  election  of  Emperor  pertaineth,  are  hereby  authorized  freely  to  choose  a 
successor,  &,c. 

*  "  Assequitur  autem  hoc,  te  volente,  teque  imperante,  si  tu  ipse,  pater 
sancte  omnipotentis  Dei  cujus  vices  in  terris  non  solum  honore  dignitatis,  sed 
etiam  studio  voluntatis  gerere  debes  :  si  ipsius  Dei  potentiam,perfectionem  sap- 
ientiamque  imitaberis.  Atqui  ut  in  primis  potentiam  imiteris,  accingere,  pater 
sancte,  gladio  tuo,  tuo  inquam  accingere  :  binos  enim  habes  unum  tibi  reliquis 
que  hujus  mundi  principibus  communem  :  alterum  tibi  proprium,  atque  ita 
tuum,  ut  ilium  alius  nemo  nisi  a  te  habere  possit.  Hoc  itaque  gladio  tuo,  qui 
ecclesiasticae  potestatis  est,  accingere  potentissime,  et  accingere  super  femur  tuum, 
id  est,  super  universes  humani  generis  potestatis  " — Labb.  Concil,  1. 14,  p.  75. 

This  the  church  shall  obtain  by  thy  will  and  command,  if  thou  thyself,  holy 
father,  wouldst  imitate  the  power,  perfection  and  wisdom  of  the  omnipotent 
God,  whose  part  on  earth  you  are  bound  to  perform,  not  only  in  dignity  and 
honor,  but  also  in  zealous  will.  But  in  order  that  thou  mayst  imitate  his  power, 
in  the  first  place,  gird,  O  holy  father,  gird,  I  say,  thy  sword  upon  thy  thigh  ;  for 
two  swords  thou  hast,  one  common  to  thee  with  the  other  princes  of  this  world  ; 
the  other  proper  and  peculiar  to  thyself,  and  so  specially  thine,  that  no  other 
can  have  it  but  from  thee.  This,  therefore,  which  is  the  sword  of  ecclesiastical 
power,  gird,  O  thou  most  mighty,  upon  thy  thigh,  that  is,  upon  all  the  poten- 
tates of  the  human  race. 


148  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

The  Pontiffs,  in  their  damnatory  sentences,  are  particularly 
fond  of  quoting  the  words  of  Jeremiah,  in  accommodation  to  them- 
selves— "  I  have  set  thee  over  the  nations  and  over  the  kingdoms," 
as  well  as  the  words  of  Christ  to  Peter,  in  the  largest  and  most 
absolute  sense.  To  be  the  Vicar  of  the  Omnipotent  God,  is  to 
be  Lord  of  Lords,  and  King  of  Kings.  In  the  famous  contro- 
versy betwixt  Boniface  VIIL  and  Philip  the  Fair,'  the  insolent 
Pontiff  boldly  asserted  that  "The  King  of  France,  with  all  other 
Kings  and  Princes  whatsoever,  were  obliged,  by  a  Divine  com- 
mand, to  submit  to.  the  authority  of  the  Popes,  as  well  in  all  po- 
litical and  civil  matters,  as  in  those  of  a  religious  nature."  These 
doctrines  are  fully  brought  out  in  the  memorable  Bull,  "  Unam 
Sanctam,"  in  which  it  is  maintained  that  "Jesus  had  granted  a 
two-fold  power  to  the  Church,  or  in  other  words  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  sword,  and  subjected  the  whole  human  race  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Roman  Pontiff,"  whom  they  were  bound  to  obey 
on  pain  of  eternal  damnation.* 

There  is  another  view,  which  has  been  approved  by  the  church 
in  every  possible  way,  by  the  voice  of  her  Doctors,  the  Bulls  of 
Popes,  and  the  decrees  of  Councils,  which  reaches  the  same 
practical  results  on  grounds  less  flagrantly  wicked,  or  detestably 
blasphemous.  It  is  the  opinion  maintained  by  Baronius,  Bel- 
larmin,  Binius,  Carranza,  Perron,  Turrecrema  and  Pighius,  and 
abounding  ad  nauseam  in  the  documents  of  Gregory  VII.  The 
Pope,  according  to  these  writers,  is  not  absolute  lord  of  the  in- 
fidel world.  His  special  jurisdiction  is  the  guardianship  and  care 
of  the  church.  In  protecting  his  flock,  however,  from  the  en- 
ijroachments  of  error  and  the  dangers  of  schism,  he  is  clothed 
with  plenary  power  to  disturb  the  government  of  nations,  and 
destroy  the  institutions  of  states.  He  has  a  broad  commission 
from  Heaven  to  provide  for  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the 
church,  and  whatever  powers  may  be  found  subservient  to  the 
fulfilment  of  this  delegated  trust,  are  indirectly  vested    in  his 

*  Gibert  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,  vol.  2,  p.  513,  sums  up  the  famous  bull  of 
Boniface  VIIL,  de  majoritate  et  obedientia,  in  these  pregnant  words  :  "  Definit 
terreuam  potestatem  spirituali  ita  subdi,  ut  ilia  possit  ab  ista  instituietdestitui." 

It  determines  that  earthly  dominion  is  to  be  so  subject  to  spiritual,  that  the 
former  can  be  set  up  and  pulled  down  by  the  latter. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED,  149 

hands.  Like  a  Roman  Dictator,  his  business  is  to  see  that  the 
Republic  of  the  faithful  receives  no  damage  ;  and  if  kino-s  and 
rulers  should  be  regarded  as  dangerous  to  the  interests  of  the 
church,  kings  and  rulers  may  be  laid  aside  at  his  sovereign 
pleasure.  If  there  be  a  single  principle  which  can  be  called  the 
doctrine  of  the  Romish  sect,  to  which  its  infallibility  is  solemnly 
pledged,  and  which  has  been  exemplified  in  repeated  acts,i\\\sis 
the  principle.  Thomas  Aquinas  distinctly  teaches  that  the 
church  can  absolve  believing  subjects  from  the  power  and  domin- 
ion of  infidel  kings.  J^gideus  maintains  that  the  power  of 
the  church,  which  is  fully  embodied  in  the  sovereign  Pontiif, 
extends  not  only  to  spiritual  interests,  but  also  to  temporal 
affairs.  Thomas  Cajetan  defines  the  power  of  the  Pope,  almost  in 
the  very  words  with  which  I  have  described  this  general  opinion.* 

*  "  Potest  tamen  juste  per  sententiam,  vel  ordinationem  Ecclesise,  auctori- 
tatem  Dei  habentis,  tale  jus  dominii,  vel  praelationis  tolli ;  quia  infideles  merito 
suae  infidelitatis  merentur  potestatem  aniittere  super  fideles,  qui  transferuntur  in 
filios  Dei ;  sed  hoc  quidem  Ecclesia  quandoque  facit,  quandoque  non  facit." — 
Bellarm.  Tract.  De  Potest.  Summ.  Pontif.  p.  11. 

"  Sed,  inquit,  diceret  aliquis,  quod  Reges  et  Prineipes  spiritualiter  non  tem- 
poraliter  subsinl  Ecclesise.  Sedhaec  dicentesvim  argumenti  non  capiunt:  nam 
si  solum  spiritualiter  Reges  et  Prineipes  subessent  Ecclesiae,  non  esset  gladius 
sub  gladio :  non  essent  temporalia  sub  spiritualibus  ;  non  esset  ordo  in  potesta- 
tibus  ;  non  reducerentur  infima  in  suprema  per  media.  Hsec  ille,  qui  toto  illo 
tractatu  hoc  probat,  potestatem  Ecclesise,  quae  plenissima  est  in  Summo  Ponti- 
fice,  non  ad  sola  spiritualia,sed  ctiam  ad  temporalia  se  extendere." — Ibid.  p.  13. 

"  Ideo  suae  potestati  duo  conveniunt :  primo,  quod  non  est  directe  respect u 
femporalium  :  secundo,  quod  est  rcspectu  temporalium  in  ordiiie  ad  spiritualia  : 
hoc  enim  habet  ex  eo,  quod  ad  supremum  fineni  omnia  ordinari  dehent,  etiam  tem- 
poralia ab  eo  procul  dubio,  cujus  interest  ad  illuin  finem  omnes  dirigere,  ut  est 
Christi  Vicarius;  primum  autem  ex  natura  suae  potestatis  consequitur."-/6zrf.p.l5. 

Such  rights  of  dominion,  however,  may  be  taken  away  by  the  sentence 
or  ordinance  of  the  Church,  having  the  authority  of  God ;  because  infidels,  by 
reason  of  their  unbelief,  deserve  to  lose  their  authority  over  the  faithful,  who 
are  transferred  to  the  sons  of  God  ;  but  as  to  this,  the  Church  sometimes  exe- 
cutes this,  her  right,  and  sometimes  not,  as  she  thinks  fit. 

But,  some  one  may  say,  that  Kings  and  Princes  are  subject  to  the  Church 
spiritually,  not  temporally.  Those  saying  this  do  not  seize  the  force  of  the  ar- 
gument ;  for  if  kings  and  princes  were  only  subject  to  the  Church  spiritually, 
there  would  not  be  a  sword  under  a  sword  ;  temporal  things  would  not  be  under 
spiritual ;  there  would  not  be  an  order  in  powers  ;  the  lowest  would  not  be  raised 


150  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

Those  who  wish  to  see  a  sickening  list  of  the  Popish  writers 
who  have  maintained  this  notion  of  Pontifical  power,  will  find 
ample  satisfaction  in  the  treatise  of  Bellarmin  de  Potestate.  Pri- 
vate writers,  however,  are  of  little  value,  compared  with  councils 
and  Popes  themselves.  Gregory  VII.,  in  a  Roman  synod  con- 
sisting of  one  hundred  and  ten  bishops,  presumed,  for  the  honor 
and  protection  of  the  church,  to  depose  Henry  from  the  Govern- 
ment of  Germany  and  Italy,  and  transfer  his  dominions  to  an- 
other man.  This  sentence,  as  Bellarmin  triumphantly  boasts, 
was  afterwards  confirmed  by  Victor,  Urban,  Pascal,  Gelasius, 
and  Calixtus,  in  the  synods  of  Beneventine,  Placentia,  Rome, 
Colonia,  and  Rheims.*  I  need  not  insist  upon  the  cases  of  Bon- 
iface and  Philip  the  Fair,  Paul  the  third  and  Henry  VIII.,  Pius 
V.  and  the  Virgin  dueen.  The  memorable  Bull  in  Coena 
Domini,  issued  by  Pius  V.  in  1567,  should  not  be  suflTered  to  pass 
without  notice.     This  atrocious  document  prostrates  the  power 

to  the  highest,  through  the  intermediate.  (So  far,  this  author,  who,  in  this  whole 
treatise,  proves  this,  that  the  power  of  the  Church,  which  is  complete  in  the 
sovereign  Pontiff,  extends,  not  to  spiritual  things  alone,  but  temporal.) 

His  (the  Pope's)  power  has  not  a  direct  respect  to  temporal  things,  but  a  re- 
spect to  temporal  in  order  to  spiritual.  For  this  it  has  from  the  circumstance, 
that  all  things  ought  to  be  ordered  and  disposed  for  one  supreme  end,  and  that 
by  him  unquestionably  to  whom  it  pertains  to  direct  all  things  to  that  end,  as 
he  is  Christ's  vicar,  and  so  the  temporal  power  is  involved  in  the  nature  of  his 
spiritual  power. 

*  "  Quapropta  confidens  de  judicio  et  misericordia  Dei,  ejusque  piissimae 
matris  semper  virginis  Mariae,  fultus  vestra  auctoritate,  saepe  nominatum  Hen- 
ricum,  quem  regem  dicunt,  omnesque  fautores  ejus  excommunicationi  subjicio 
et  anathematis  vinculis  alligo  ;  et  iterum  regnum  Teutoniconmi  et  ItaHee,  ex 
parte  Omnipotentis  Dei  et  vestra  interdicens  ei,  omnem  potestatem  et  dignita- 
tem ilii  regiam  toUo  et  ut  nuUus  Christianorum  ei  sicut  regi  obediat  interdico, 
omnesque  qui  ei  juraverunt  vel  jurabunt  de  regni  dominatione,  a  juramenti  pro- 
missione  absolvi." — Labbe,  vol.  x.  p.  384. 

Wherefore,  confiding  in  the  justice  and  mercy  of  God,  and  of  his  most  holy 
mother  Mary,  always  virgin,  and  supported  by  your  authority,  I  lay  under  ex- 
communication, and  bind  under  the  chains  of  our  anathema,  the  oft-named 
Henry,  whom  they  style  king,  and  all  his  adherents  ;  and  on  the  part  of  Al- 
mighty God  and  you,  interdicting  him  the  rule  of  Germany  and  Italy,  I  deprive 
him  of  all  power  and  regal  dignity,  and  I  forbid  every  Christian  to  obey  him  as 
king,  and  all  who  have  sworn  or  may  swear  allegiance  to  him,  I  absolve  from 
their  oath. 


APOCRYPHA  DISnUSSED  AND  REFUTED.  151 

of  kings  and  magistrates  at  the  foot  of  the  Pope,  subverts  the 
independence  of  states  and  nations,  and  makes  the  sword  of 
monarchs  and  rulers  the  pliant  tool  of  Pontifical  despotism.* 
Even  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  successors  of  the  fisherman 
are  regaled  with  dreams  of  terrestrial  grandeur,  and  Pius  VII., 
in  the  plenitude  of  spiritual  power,  poured  all  the  vials  of  his 
wrath  upon  the  head  of  Napoleon. 

Directly  or  indirectly,  more  or  less  distinctly,  eight  general 
councils  have  endorsed  the  doctrine  of  the  temporal  jurisdiction 
of  the  Pope.  The  fourth  and  fifth  of  Lateran,  those  of  Lyons, 
Vienna,  Pisa,  Constance,  Basil  and  Trent.  The  third  canon  of 
the  fourth  council  of  Lateran,  is  intended  to  provide  for  the 
extirpation  of  heresy.  It  is  there  decreed,  that  if  any  temporal 
lord,  after  the  admonition  of  the  church,  should  neglect  to  purge 
his  realm  from  heretical  pravity,  he  shall  be  excommunicated  by 
his  metropolitan  and  suffragans.  If  he  should  still  fail  to  give 
satisfaction  for  a  year,  his  contumacy  shall  be  announced  to  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  who  shall  proceed  to  absolve  his  subjects  from 
their  allegiance,  and  transfer  his  dominions  to  any  usurper,  wil- 
lincp  and  able  to  extirminate  heretics  and  restore  the  faith. "f 
"If  this,"  says  Bellarmin,  "is  not  the  voice  of  the  Catholic 
Church — where,  I  pray,   shall   we    find  it?"      The  council  of 

*  For  a  particular  account  of  this  famous  bull,  the  reader  is  particularly 
referred  to  Giannone  1st.  di  Napoli.  lib.  33,  cap.  4.,  who  may  there  see  its  auda- 
cious interference  with  the  right  of  kings,  magistrates  and  rulers,  fully  exposed. 

t  "  Si  vero  Dominus  Temporalis  requisitus  et  monitus  ab  ecclesia,  terram 
suam  purgare  neglexerit  ab  hac  hseretica  fceditate,  per  metropolitanum  et 
cceteros  comprovinciales  episcopos  excommunicationis  vinculo  innodetur.  Et, 
si  satisfacere  contempserit  infra  annum,  significetur  hoc  summo  Pontifici,  ut 
ex  tunc  esse  vassalos  ab  ejus  fidelitate  denunciet  absolutos  et  terram  exponat 
catholicis  occupandam,  qui  eam  exterminatis  haereticis  sine  ulla  contradictione 
possideant  et  in  fidei  puritate  conservent." — Lahhe,  vol.  xi.  p.  148. 

But  if  any  temporal  lord,  when  required  and  admonished  by  the  Church, 
shall  neglect  to  purge  his  land  from  this  heretical  taint,  let  him  be  bound  in  the 
chains  of  excommunication  by  the  metropolitan  and  other  bishops.  And  if  he 
disdain  to  give  satisfaction  within  a  year,  let  this  be  signified  to  the  sovereign 
Pontiff,  that  henceforth  he  may  declare  the  vassals  of  such  lord  absolved  from 
their  allegiance,  and  may  devote  his  land  to  be  occupied  by  catholics,  who, 
exterminating  the  heretics,  may  possess  it  without  any  contradiction,  and  may 
preserve  it  in  the  tnie  faith. 


152  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Trent that  I  may  not  occupy  the  reader  with  a  tedious  display  of 

the  insolence,  arrogance  and  pride  of  Vienna,  Constance,  Pisa, 
and  Basil— the  council  of  Trent,  in  its  twenty-fifth  session, 
passed  a  statute  in  relation  to  duelling,  which  seems  to  assume 
something  more  definite  and  tangible  than  spiritual  power.  The 
temporal  sovereign  who  permits  a  duel  to  take  place  in  his  do- 
minions, is  punished  not  only  with  excommunication,  but  with 
the  loss  of  the  place  in  which  the  combat  occurred.  The  duel- 
ists and  their  seconds  are  condemned  in  the  same  statute,  to  per- 
petual infamy,  the  forfeiture  of  their  goods,  and  deprived,  if 
they  should  fall,  of  Christian  burial,  while  those  who  were 
merely  spectators  of  the  scene,  are  sentenced  to  eternal  male- 
diction.* 


*  "  Detestabilis  duellonim  usus  fabricante  diabolo  introductus,  ut  cruenta 
corporum  morte  animarum  etiam  perniciem  lucretur  ;  ex  Christiano  orbe  peni- 
tus  exterminetur  imperatur,  reges,  duces,  principes,  marchiones,  comites,  et 
quocumque  alio  nomine  domini  temporales,  qui  locum  ad  monomachiam  in 
terris  suis  inter  Christianos  concesserint,  eo  ipso  sint  excommunicati  ac  juris- 
dictione  et  dominio  civitatis,  castri,  aut  loci,  in  quo  vel  apud  quem  duellum 
geri  permiscerint,  quod  ab  eccfesia  obtinent,  privati  intelligantur  ;  et,  si  fudalia 
sint,  directis  dominis  statim  acquirantur.  Qui  vero  pugnam  commisserint,  et 
qui  eorem  patiini  vocantur,  excommunicationis,  ac  omnium  honorum  suorum 
proscriptionis,  ac  perpetuse  infamiee  pcsnam  incurrant ;  et  ut  homicidae  juxta 
sacros  canones  puniri  debeant ;  et  si  in  ipso  conflictu  decesserint,  perpetuo  ca- 
reant  ecclesiastica  sepultura,  illi  etiam,  qui,  consilium  in  causa  duelli  tam  injure 
quam  facto  dederint,  aut  alia  quacumque  ratione  ad  id  quemquam  suasderint,nec 
non  spectatores  excommunicationis,  ac  perpetuae  maledictionis  vinculo  tenean- 
tur  non  obstante  quocumque  privilegio  ;  seu  prava  consuetudine  etiam  immemo. 
rabili." — Lahhe,yo\.  xiv.  p.  916. 

The  detestable  practice  of  duelling,  introduced  by  the  agency  of  the  Devil, 
in  order  that,  by  the  bloody  death  of  men's  bodies,  he  may  gain  the  destruction 
of  their  souls — let  it  be  utterly  exterminated  from  the  Christian  world.  Let  the 
Emperor,  king,  duke,  marquis,  count  or  temporal  lord  of  whatever  name,  who 
shall  allow  single  combat  to  Christians  within  his  territories,  be  by  that  act  ex- 
communicated, and  be  understood  as  deprived  of  the  jurisdiction  of  such  city, 
fort,  or  place  where  such  duel  has  been  permitted  ;  and  if  feudal  possessors,  let 
them  revert  to  their  direct  owners.  As  for  the  principals  and  seconds  in  such 
contest,  let  them  incur  ijie  penalty  of  excommunication,  deprivation  of  all  their 
honors,  and  be  doomed  to  perpetual  infamy,  and  let  them  be  punished  as  mur- 
derers according  to  thes&cred  canons  ;  and  if  they  have  fallen  in  the  conflict,  let 
them  be  forever  deprived  of  ecclesiastical  burial.     And  let  all  who  have  in  any 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  153 

The  inevitable  tendency  of  these  arbitrary  claims  to  secular 
authority  is  to  merge  tlie  State  in  the  Church.  Kings  and  Empe- 
rors, nations  and  communities  become  merely  the  instruments 
the  pliant  tools,  of  spiritual  dominion.  The  kingdoms  of  the 
earth  are  inferior  principalities  to  a  magnificent  hierarchy,  the 
first  places  of  which  are  reserved  for  ecclesiastical  dio-nities. 
The  higher  commands  the  lower;  and  so  the  Pope  can  set  his 
feet  upon  the  neck  of  kings,  and  bind  their  nobles  in  fetters  of 
iron.  The  Church  includes  the  State,  as  the  greater  includes  the 
less,  as  a  bishop  includes  a  priest,  and  a  priest  includes  a  deacon. 
The  natural  consequence  is,  that  the  supreme  allegiance  of  the 
faithful  is  due  primarily  to  the  head  of  the  Church.  In  a  conflict 
of  power  between  princes  and  popes — the  first  and  highest  duty 
of  all  the  vassals  of  Rome,  is  to  maintain  her  honor  and  support 
her  claims.  Hence  the  Jesuit,  in  his  secret  oath,  renounces  al- 
legiance to  all  earthly  powers  which  have  not  been  confirmed 
by  the  Holy  See,  and  devotes  his  life  and  soul  to  the  undivided 
services  of  the  Pope.  The  Romish  Church,  too,  sets  her  face 
like  a  flint  against  the  subjection  of  her  spiritual  officers  to  the  le- 
gal tribunals  of  the  state,  and  has  positively  prohibited  the  intolera- 
ble presumption  in  laymen,  though  kings  and  magistrates,  of  de- 
manding oaths  of  allegiance  from  the  lofty  members  of  her  hier- 
archy.*    They  are  specially  and  emphatically  her  subjects,  and 

way  authorized  or  advised  such  duel,  and  oven  spectators  be  bound  underexcom- 
municatiou  and  everlasting  curse,  any  privilege  or  depraved  usage  to  the  contra- 
ry notwithstanding. 

*  ■•'  Nimis  de  jure  Divino  quidam  laici  usurpare  conantur,  cum  viros  eccle- 
siasticos,  nihil  temporale  destinentes  abeis,  ad  prae&tanduni  fidelitates  juramenta 
compellunt.  Quia  vero,  secundum  Apostolum,  servius  si/o  Domino  stat  ant 
cadat ;  sacri  auctoritate  concilii  prohibernus,  ne  tales  clerici  personis  saeculari- 
bus  praestare  coganturhujusmodi  juramentum." — IV.  Lateran,  Can.  43.  Lahbe, 
vol.  xi.  p.  191. 

Some  laics  attempt  to  usurp  too  much  of  divine  right,  when  they  compel 
ecclesiastics,  holding  nothing  temporal  of  them,  to  take  oaths  of  allegiance. 
But,  inasmuch  as  the  apostle  says,  "  to  his  own  master  the  servant  stands  or 
falls,"  we  prohibit,  on  the  authority  of  the  sacred  council,  that  such  clerics  be 
compelled  to  take  oaths  of  this  kind  to  secular  persons. 

That  ecclesiastical  officers  should  be  tried  only  in  ecclesiastical  courts,  is 
the  standing  doctrine  of  the  Canon  Law.  I  select  a  few  extracts  from 
Gibert's  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,  yol.  iii.  p.  530  : 

8 


154  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

she  cannot  consent  that  their  fealty  should  be  transferred  to 
others.  Such  principles  are  fatal  to  the  independence  of  na- 
tions ;  and  just  in  proportion  as  the  doctrines  of  Rome  gain  the 
ascendency  among  any  people,  just  in  the  same  proportion  a  se- 
cret enemy  is  cherished,  slowly  but  surely  plotting  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  institutions,  however  noble  or  sublime,  that  may  hap- 
pen to  contradict  the  humor  of  a  bigoted  Italian  prince,  or  be  in- 
consistent with  decrees  passed  in  ages  of  darkness,  superstition, 
and  despotism.  The  slaves  of  the  papacy  are  taught  to  conceal 
their  weapons  until  they  are  ready  to  strike — to  disguise  their 
hemlock  and  nightshade  until  they  can  prepare  the  deadly  po- 
tation, with  the  certain  prospect  of  success.  But  when  once 
they  become  master  of  the  sceptre  and  the  sword,  they  are  to 
strike  for  Rome,  sell  the  liberties  of  the  country  to  their  spiritual 
lord,  raise  the  banner  of  inhuman  persecution,  and  purge  the 
land  from  the  damning  stain  of  heretical  pravity  with  the  blood 
of  its  noblest  sons. 

La  Fayette  is  reported  to  have  said,  that  if  ever  the  liberties 
of  this  country  should  be  destroyed,  it  would  be  by  the  machina- 
tions of  Romish  priests.  They  are  all,  in  fact,  the  sworn  sub- 
jects of  a  foreign  potentate — they  acknowledge  an  earthly  king 
who  has  repeatedly  denounced  every  distinctive  principle  for 
which  our  fathers  bled — who,  in  the  dark  hour  of  their  trial, 
when  the  sons  of  Poland  rose  up  in  the  majesty  of  insulted  nature, 
and  demanded  that  freedom  which  is  the  birthright  of  nations, 
interposed  his  spiritual  thunder  to  crush  the  rights  of  man.     The 

"  Ul  null  us  judicum  neque  Presbyterium,  neque  diaconum  vel  clericum 
ullum  aut  juniores  ecclesias  sine  scientia  Pontificis  per  se  distringat  aut  darnnare 
preesumat.  Clericus  de  omni  crimina  coram  judice  ecclesiastico  debet  conve- 
niri.  In  sacris  canonibus  generaliter  traditur  ut  de  omni  crimine  clericns 
debeat  coram  ecclesiastico  judico  conveniri. 

"  A  saeculari  potestate  nee  ligari,  nee  solvi  sacerdotem  posse,  manifestum 

est." 

No  judge  shall  presume,  of  himself,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Pontiff, 
to  distress  or  condemn  either  priest  or  deacon,  or  any  clergyman  or  younger 
members  of  the  Church.  A  clerk  must,  on  every  charge,  be  brought  before  an 
ecclesiastical  judge.  In  sacred  canon,  it  is  uniformly  ordered  that  for  every 
crime  a  cleric  ought  to  come  before  a  clerical  judge.  It  is  clear  that  a  priest 
cannot  be  bound  or  Iposed  by  a  secular  power, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  155 

priesthood  of  Rome  is  a  formidable  body.  The  moral  elements 
which  bind  the  human  family  together  in  the  ties  of  truth,  fidelity, 
and  honor,  are  feeble  to  them  as  Samson's  withes,  or  pointless  as 
Priam's  darts.  To  the  outward  eye  all  may  he  fair  and  seemly 
— but  the  country  which  they  truly  love,  is  that  which  is  pre- 
pared to  bow  the  knee  to  the  authority  of  Rome,  and  lick  the 
pontiff's  feet.  All  other  lands  are  accursed  of  God,  and  their 
vocation  is  to  reclaim  them  from  their  ruin,  to  bring  them  into 
the  holy  fold,  to  overturn  and  overturn  and  overturn,  until  the 
Man  of  Sin  is  prepared  to  pronounce  his  magic  benediction. 

The  immortal  Milton,  "  the  champion  and  martyr  of  English 
liberty,"  as  well  as  the  "glory  of  English  literature,"  the  bold 
defender  of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  the  rights  of  conscience, 
and  the  rights  of  man,  gave  it  as  his  deliberate  opinion,  that  a 
Christian  commonwealth,  in  consequence  of  the  Pope's  preten- 
sions to  political  power,  and  the  idolatrous  nature  of  his  religious 
rites,  ought  not  to  tolerate  his  dangerous  sect*  When  destitute 
of  power  or  forming  only  a  fraction  of  the  community,  papists 
may  do  no  serious  harm,  but  the  serpent  in  the  fable  had  lost  no- 
thing of  its  venom,  though  it  had  lost  its  muscular  activity.  They 
whose  eyes,  night  and  day,  are  turned  to  the  eternal  city,  whose 
prayers  are  hourly  ascending  for  its  glory,  and  whose  zeal  is  devo- 
ted to  its  highest  prosperity  ;  they  who  are  persuaded  that  the  ark 
of  God  is  there,  and  that  the  hopes  of  man  are  centred  in  the  favor 
of  the  monarch  who  sits  upon  the  seven  hills  ;  they  who  are  bound, 
under  an  awful  curse,  to  maintain  the  princely  and  divine  preroga- 
tives which  superstition,  fanaticism,  pride,  and  ambition  have  at- 
tributed to  this  august  and  venerable  mortal,  are  not  the  men  to  love 
a  land  which  is  darkened  by  his  frown,  or  blasted  by  his  bitter 
execrations.  They  may  take  the  usual  oath  of  allegiance,  but 
Lateran  has  taught  them  that  oaths  are  breath,  when  the  inter- 
ests of  the  Church  demand  their  violation.  There  is  but  one  tie 
which  is  stronger  than  death  :  the  tie  which  binds  them  to  Rome. 
Living  or  dying,  in  all  states  and  conditions,  in  poverty  or  wealth, 
at  home  or  abroad,  wherever  they  are,  or  whatever  they  do,  Rome 

*  See  the  question  clLscussed,  "How  far  the  religion  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  is  tolerable  ?"  m  Taylor's  T/iberty  of  Propbepying.  §  xx. 


156  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

must  never  be  forgotten.     The    claims  of  brotherhood,  friend- 
ship, patriotism,  and  honor — all  that  is  dear  on  earth,  in  private 
relations  or  public  institutions,  all   must  be  sacrificed  when  the 
voice  of  Rome  commands  it.     She  holds  in  her  hands  the  dread 
retributions  of  eternity  ;  heaven  or  hell  depends  upon  her  nod ; 
and  when   she  brings  to  bear  her  terrific  sanctions,  her  faithfni 
children  throughout  the  world,  to  avoid  the  impending  storm,  nes- 
tle beneath  her  wings.    Where  is  the  state,  community,  or  nation 
on  the  whole  face  of  the  earth,  that  can  thunder  with  a  voice  like 
Rome  ?   What  are  laws,  statutes,  ordinances  and  oaths,  when  a  sin- 
gle word  from  the  eternal  city  can  turn  them,  in  the  eyes  of  pa- 
pists, to  vanity  and  wind  ?     When  was  it  ever  known  that  a  faith- 
ful son  of  the  Church  respected  the  laws  as  much  as  his  priest, 
his  country   as  much  as  Rome,  the  highest  tribunal  of  the  land 
as'much  as  the  Pope?   It  is  idle  to  attempt  to  disguise  the  fact, 
that  the   religion  of  the  Pope   ts  essentially  seditious.     In   its 
grasping  ambition   it  tramples   upon  thrones,  principalities   and 
powers,  subverts  the  liberty  of  nations,  destroys  the  independence 
of  states,  and  makes  the  sword  and  the  sceptre  alike  subservient 
to  its  own  relentless  despotism.     These  results  so  obviously  fol- 
low from   the  claims  to  temporal  authority,  which  have  already 
been  considered,  that  many  papists  have  been  disposed  to  restrict 
the  power  of  the  Pope  wholly  within  spiritual    bounds.     Hence 
a  third  view,  that  maintained  by  the  Parliament  of  Paris  and  en- 
dorsed by  the  Gallican  clergy,  remains  to  be  considered. 

According  to  this  view,  kings  and  rulers  are  not  subject  to 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  in  the  conduct  of  their  secular  affairs. 
Their  jurisdiction  is  distinct  from  his:  he  moves  in  the  orbit  of 
spiritual  dominion,  and  they  in  the  orbit  of  temporal  authority  ; 
he  deals  in  matters  of  supernatural  faith,  and  they  in  matters  of 
civil  obedience.  This  theory  is  beautiful,  and  the  distinction  is 
just,  but  the  doctrine  of  infallibility/  renders  them  practically 
worthless.  The  Pope  has  power  to  define  articles  of  faith,  and 
to  instruct  the  faithful  in  the  will  of  God.  Whatever  he  pro- 
poses as  an  article  of  faith  must,  of  course,  be  received  with 
undoubting  faith.  To  admit  the  right  of  the  people  to  deter- 
mine what  arc  articles  of  faith,  and  what  are  not,  would  be  to  in- 
troduce the  odious  principle  of  the  ri^ht  of  private  judgment. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  157 

Then  if  the  Pope  has  plenary  power  to  define  the  articles  of  Ca- 
tholic faith,  and  if  every  thing  is  to  be  received  as  an  article  of 
faith  which  he  proposes  as  such,  he  can  easily  introduce  his 
arbitrary  claims  to  temporal  jurisdiction,  under  the  convenient 
disguise  of  supernatural  revelation.  He  will  not  directly  assert 
that  he  possesses  the  power  of  deposing  kings,  or  subverting  na- 
tions, but  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  heretical  magistrates  should 
not  be  eiicourafjed,  and  obedience  to  their  laws  is  a  sanction  of 
their  crimes.  He  might  caution  the  faithful  not  to  be  partakers 
in  other  men's  sins,  and  guard  them  especially  from  encouraging 
the  great  in  rebellion  against  God.  The  nice  distinctions  of  the 
Gallican  Church  are  mere  dust  and  ashes,  unless  the  doctrine  of 
infallibility  is  denied,  and  the  right  of  private  judgment  main- 
tained. If  the  people  are  bound  to  believe  whatever  the  Pope 
may  prescribe  as  an  article  of  faith,  the  door  is  thrown  wide 
open — as  open  as  Hildebrand  himself  could  wish  it — for  the  intro- 
duction of  all  manner  of  treason.  It  is  an  idle  evasion  to  say 
that  although  men  are  not  judges  of  spiritual  matters,  yet  they 
are  judges  o{  temporal  matters,  and  therefore  capable  of  deciding 
when  the  Sovereign  Pontiflf  invades  the  territory  of  temporal 
jurisdiction.  This  plea  would  be  good  if  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
were  fallible.  They  might  then  oppose  their  judgments  to  his 
decision.  But  if  he  be  infallible,  and  pronounces  a  principle  to 
be  an  article  of  faith,  which  they  beforehand  would  have  viewed 
as  belonging  to  the  sphere  of  the  civil  magistrate,  they  must,  of 
course,  yield  their  fallible  opinion  to  an  infallible  decision.  A 
crust  of  bread  is  mutton,  wine,  and  beef;  the  sacred  wafer  is  the 
Redeemer  of  men,  soul,  body,  and  divinity,  if  Rome  pronounces 
them  to  be  so.  It  is  not  more  unreasonable  that  we  should 
abandon  our  judgments  about  political  rights  at  the  bidding  of 
his  holiness,  than  that  we  should  renounce  our  confidence — in- 
stinctive though  it  be — in  the  report  of  our  senses.  Practically, 
therefore,  the  theory  of  the  Gallican  clergy  is  no  security  from 
the  ejicroachments  of  Rome.  So  long  as  infallibility  is  main- 
tained, it  will  poison  the  purest  principles,  and  corrupt  the  fairest 
schemes.  It  affords  an  abundant  entrance  for  that  indirect  power 
over  states,  nations  and  empires,  for  which  doctors  have  pleaded, 
councils  decreed,  and  Popes  intrigued. 


158  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

It  is  a  pungent  saying  of  Passavan,  that  *'  Satan  tendered 
the  earth  and  all  its  glory  to  Immanuel,  and  met  with  a  peremp- 
tory  rejection — he   afterwards   made  the   same  overture  to  the 
Pope,  who  accepted  the  offer  with  thanks,  and  with  the  annexed 
condition  of  worshipping  the  Prince  of  Darkness."     The  subtle 
arts  and  crafty  machinations  by   which,   from   small  beginnings, 
the  Popes  have  usurped,  under  various  pretexts,  the  right  of  uni- 
versal dominion,  are  a  pregnant  proof  of  an  intimate   alliance 
with  the  father  of  lies.     Their  first  interferences  in  the  affairs 
of  states  were  slow  and  gradual ;  they  were  content  to  use  their 
spiritual  authority  in  instigating  subjects  to  rebellion,  or  embroil- 
ing nations  in  war.     Encouraged  by  success,  they  rose  higher 
and  higher  in  their  claims  until  the  summit  of  pontifical   arro- 
gance was  reached  in  the  person  of  Hildebrand.     What  a  chasm 
between    Gregory   II.   and  Gregory   VII.,   filled   up   with   gins, 
snares,  and  nets,  fraud,  hypocrisy,  and  lies !      While  the  succes- 
sors of  St.  Peter  have  pretended  to  labor  for  the  salvation  of 
souls,  it  is  plain  that  nations  have  been  their  game,  kings  their 
victims,   and  diadems  their  hope.     The  golden  vision  of  univer- 
sal empire,  which  encouraged  the  zeal,  quickened  the  efforts  and 
soothed  the  anxieties  of  Gregory  VII.,  has  never  ceased  to  float 
before  the  minds  of  his  successors,  and  make  them  at  once  the 
enemies  of  man,  and  the  objects  of  abhorrence  to  God.     Their 
eyes  are  fixed  upon  the  earth,  and  the  cup  of  their  ambition  will 
never  be  full,  until,  from  east  to  west,  from  north  to  south,  every 
kindred,  tongue  and  language,  all  the  tribes  and  families  of  man, 
shall  acknowledge  the  Pope,  as  king  of  kings  and  lord   of  lords. 
To  accomplish  this  grand  and  magnificent  purpose,  Jesuits  are 
found  in  every   country,  plying  their  labors  with  untiring  zeal. 
Their  voice  is  heard  amid  the  roar  of  the  cataract  in  the  forests 
of  the  savage,  or  it  charms  the  circles  of  the  giddy   and  the  gay 
in  the  saloons  of  refinement  and  elegance — their  shadows  are 
seen  in  the  dusky  light  of  the  convict's  cell,  and  their  persons  are 
found  in  the  halls  of  the  great,  and  the  palaces  of  kings.     They 
stoop  to  instruct  the  child  in  its  alphabet,  and  the  young  in  phi- 
losophy, and  delight  to  discuss  with  senators  aud  statesmen  the 
policy  of  states.     Hunger,  cold,  and  all  the  inclemencies  of  the 
sky  are  cheerfully  endured  in  their  exhausting  journeys — the 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  159 

frosts  of  winter  consume  them  by  night,  and  sleep  departs  from 
their  eyes,  and  yet  their  zeal  is  invincible,  and  their  industry  un- 
tiring. There  is  one  glorious  object  which  animates  their  hopes 
— which  lifts  them  above  the  ordinary  passions  of  man — and  ren- 
ders them  insensible  to  danger  and  fearless  of  death.  That  ob- 
ject is  the  triumph  of  Rome.  For  her  they  have  sacrificed  moral 
character,  personal  comforts,  the  delight  of  patriotism,  and  the 
endearments  of  home.  To  her  they  are  devoted  with  a  terrible 
enthusiasm — which  is  cool  and  collected,  because  too  intense  to 
be  vented  in  passion,  or  wasted  in  extravagance  ;  and  if  Rome 
should  ever  triumph,  they  are  the  men  whose  principles  shall 
be  lord  of  the  ascendant,  and  dictate  law  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  In  their  diligence,  industry,  zeal  and  enthusiasm,  let  the 
people  of  this  country  learn  their  danger  and  provide  for  their 
safety. 

There  are  peculiar  principles  in  the  constitution  of  the  polity 
of  Rome  which  render  it  an  engine  of  tremendous  power.  The 
doctrine  oi  auricular  confession  establishes  a  system  of  espionage 
which  is  absolutely  fatal  to  personal  independence;  and,  from  the 
intimate  connexion  between  Priests  and  Bishops,  and  Bishops 
and  the  Pope,  all  the  important  secrets  of  the  earth  can  easi- 
ly be  transmitted  to  the  Vatican.  What  can  be  more  alarm- 
inop  than  a  whole  army,  scattered  through  the  lencrth  and  breadth 
of  the  land,  in  close  and  secret  correspondence  with  a  tyrant 
who  detests  every  principle  that  makes  life  dear,  or  a  country 
glorious?  The  ingenuity  of  earth  and  hell,  could  not  devise  a 
more  successful  expedient  for  prostrating  liberty,  enslaving  the 
conscience,  and  introducing  the  Pope  to  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  all  the  purposes  and  interests  of  man,  than  the  scheme  of 
auricular  confession.  It  opens  a  window  into  the  chambers  of 
the  heart,  and  permits  a  mortal  to  read  those  secrets  which  it  is 
the  sole  prerogative  of  God  to  know, 

I  have  now,  I  apprehend,  sufficiently  shown  that,  according 
to  the  principles  of  Rome,  the  civil  power  is  subservient  to  the 
epiritual-itlie  state  is  a  tool  of  the  church.  It  will  be  seen  at  a 
glance,  that  such  an  assumption  is  not  only  fatal  to  the  indepen- 
dence of  states,  but  equally  fatal  to  liberty  of  conscience  and 
toleration  of  dissenters.     The  right  to  persecute  is  a  legitimate 


160  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

deduction  from  the  relative  position  in  which  the  church  and 
state,  on  the  pontifical  hypothesis,  stand  to  each  other.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  magistrate  to  propagate  religion,  and  as  his 
weapons  are  exclusively  carnal,  the  dungeon,  pillory,  and  rack, 
he  has  a  right  to  employ  them  in  exacting  uniformity  of  f;\ith. 
Bossuet  was  able  to  boast,  that  on  one  point  all  Christians  had 
long  been  unanimous — the  right  of  the  civil  magistrate  to  prop- 
agate truth  by  the  sword.  In  every  form  and  shape,  by  the 
writings  of  private  individuals,  the  bulls  of  Popes,  the  canons  of 
councils,  and  above  all  by  public,  flagrant,  inhuman  acis  of  mur- 
der, rapine,  and  violence,  the  Holy  See  has  asserted  its  claim  to 
mould  the  faith  of  men,  through  the  arm  of  the  magistrate,  to 
its  own  detestable  model.  I  need  not  insist  on  the  ruthless  cru- 
sades against  the  innocent  victims  of  Lanoruedoc  and  Provence 
— on  the  infernal  atrocities  of  the  Inquisition,  or  the  awful  mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomews  ;  the  annals  of  the  papacy  are  writ- 
ten in  blood.  From  almost  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  the  vic- 
tims of  its  cruelties  shall  send  their  cries  to  heaven  for  ven- 
geance on  their  destroyers.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  if  the 
infallibility  of  Rome  were  not  pledged,  through  her  Pope  and 
councils,  to  the  ferocious  principles  of  persecution,  it  results  ne- 
cessarily  from  the  views  which  she  takes  of  the  state.  In  her 
eyes,  want  of  conformity  with  her  own  faith  is  an  act  of  rebel- 
lion, a  contumacious  rejection  of  civil  authority,  and  should,  there- 
fore, be  punished  by  the  temporal  power,  on  the  same  ground  by 
which  punishment  for  incest,  rape,  or  murder  is  justified.  It  is, 
first,  according  to  her,  the  duty  of  governments,  as  such,  to  be  nurs- 
ing-fathers to  her  faith,  and  then  to  spread  it  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  and  with  garments  rolled  in  blood.  The  truth  is,  the 
only  principle  which  can  secure  an  equal  toleration,  and  uphold 
the  liberty  of  conscience,  is  the  absolute  separation  of  church 
and  state.  They  cannot  contract  an  alliance  without  enrren- 
dering  the  monster  intolerance.  Caesar  and  God  must  be  kept 
distinct;  the  state,  as  such,  is  not  a  religions  institution,  though 
all  the  people  who  compose  it  may  be  devoutly  religious;  and 
when  it  assumes  the  propagation  of  religion  as  one  of  its  dis- 
tinctive ends,  it  is  travelling  beyond  its  limits,  and  laying  the 
foundation  of  bigotry,  intolerance,  and  despotism.     No  govern- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REPUTED.  161 

ment  on  earth  has  a  right  to  establish  Christianity  or  any  other 
system  of  religion  by  law,  and  no  church  on  earth  has  a  right  to 
commend  its  doctrines  or  enforce  its  discipline  by  pains,  penalties, 
or  civil  disabilities.  To  keep  the  state  within  the  bounds  of  its 
appropriate  jurisdiction,  is  the  secret  of  civil  liberty,  and  to  re- 
strain the  church  within  its  own  department  of  spiritual  instruc- 
tion, is  the  secret  of  religious  liberty.  When  these  two  grand 
organizations  of  God  cross  the  orbits  of  each  other,  they  me- 
nace the  earth  with  anarchy,  confusion  and  blood.  They  can 
never  coalesce;  and  all  arbitrary  unions,  like  the  converse  of  the 
sons  of  God  with  the  daughters  of  men,  are  productive  only  of 
giants,  famous  for  rebellion,  and  full  of  cruelty. 

I  shall  now  close  what  I  intended  to  suggest  on  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Romish  church.  It  will  be  remembered  that  you, 
sir,  made  this  the  medium  of  your  triumphant  proof  of  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Apocrypha.  I  have  met  and  refuted  all  your 
arguments — and  shown,  in  addition,  that  every  theory  of  papal 
infallibility,  whether  that  of  councils,  popes,  or  the  body  of  the 
church,  is  compassed  with  historical  difficulties  fatal  to  its  truth. 
I  have  proved,  moreover,  that  such  extravagant  pretensions  are 
utterly  inconsistent  with  truth,  morality,  religion,  and  liberty — the 
hiorhest  and  noblest  interests  of  man.  The  state  of  the  argument 
then  is  just  this  :  1st.  Infallibility  is  a  jiction,  resting  upon  no 
authority  of  Scripture,  upon  no  principles  of  reason,  and  contra- 
dicted by  the  testimony  of  the  best  and  purest  ages  of  the  church. 
Therefore  any  argument  which  is  based  upon  this  *'  worthless 
coinage  of  the  brain"  may  be  safely  given  to  the  winds — and 
therefore,  your  proof  o^  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha  would 
have  been  just  as  conclusive,  if  you  had  appealed  to  the  testimony 
of  the  man  in  the  moon.  2d.  If  infallibility  be  admitted,  then 
truth,  morality,  religion,  and  liberty  must  fall  to  the  ground — 
for  it  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  all  these  distinguished  bless- 
ings. Here,  then,  is  a  perfect  reductio  ad  absurdum.  So  that 
infallibility  destroys  itself,  and  leaves  us  in  quiet  possession  of 
private  judgment,  with  all  the  benefits  that  follow  in  its  train. 


8^ 


162  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

LETTER    X. 

Apocrypha  not  quoted  in  the  New  Testament. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  third  general  division  of  your  let- 
ters, I  shnll  pause  for  a  moment  to  discuss  a  point  which   would 
detain  me  too  long  in  its  proper  place,  and  which  may  be  taken 
as  a  fair  illustration  of  your  deplorable  incompetency  to  resolve 
any  question  involving  the  laws  of  literary  criticism.      When  I 
read  your  effort  to  prove  that  Christ  and  the  apostles,  in  their  re- 
corded instruction  actually  quoted  or  referred  to  passages  of  the 
Apocrypha,  I   was   forcibly    reminded   of   those    ingenious  and 
discriminating    authors   who  have    been   able  to  discover   what 
they  supposed  to  be  unquestionable  traces  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Cabbala  in  the  Lord's  prayer  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul.     Those 
who  are  silly  enough  to  be  convinced  by  the  empty  parade  of 
texts  which  you  have  strung  together  in  your  second  letter,  ought 
not  to  withhold  their   assent   from  the   learned  speculations  of 
Knorrius,  confirmed  as  they  are  by  the  authority  of  so  laborious 
a  writer  as  Budda3us.     That  a  man  of  sufficient  perspicacity  to 
find  the  Cabbala  in  the  memorable  declaration  of  Paul,  "It  is   a 
faithful  saying  and  worthy  of  all   acceptation  that  Christ  Jesus 
came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners,"  should  also  detect  in  the 
New  Testament   traces   of  Apocryphal   lore,  would   be   only  to 
exercise,   in  a  different  way,  the  same  faculty  of  critical  second 
sight.      He  that  can  discern  disembodied    spirits,   requires,  per- 
haps, no  additional  organs  to  perceive  a  devil.      The  passage 
which  you  have  adduced  as  genuine  quotations  from   the  Apoc- 
rypha, or  rather,  which  you  have  followed  Huetius  in  treating  as 
such,  I  am  sure  will  strike  no  one  in  the  same  liorht,  but  those 
who  are  previously  persuaded   that  if  these  books  are  not,  they 
ought  to  have   been,  quoted   by  Christ  and  his   apostles.     The 
strongest  evidence.  I  apprehend,  upon  which  your  position  can 
be  made  to  rest,  will  be  found  in  an  appeal  to  a  General  Council. 
If  you  could  induce  some  such  body  as  that  of  Trent  (and  a  con- 
viction of  interest  is  all  the  inducement  which  needs  to  be  urged) 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  163 

to  decree  that  these  passages  are  quotations  why  then  quotations 
they  would  have  to  be  considered.* 


*  I  will  lay  "Tjeforc  you  some  of  the  texts  of  the  New  Testament,  in 
which  the  passages  of  those  works  are  quoted  or  referred  to. 

1.  "  See  thou  never  do  to  another  what  thou  wouldst  hate  to  have  done  to 
thee  by  another."  Tob.  iv.  16.  "  All  things,  therefore,  whatsoever  you  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also  unto  them."  Matt.  vii.  12.  "And  as 
you  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also  to  them  in  like  manner." 
Luke  vi.  31. 

2.  "  Happy  shall  I  be,  if  there  shall  remain  of  my  seed,  to  see  the  glory  of 
Jcrusi'(  m.  The  gates  of  Jerusalem  shall  be  built  of  Sapphire  and  Emerald, 
and  ail  the  walls  thereof  round  about  of  precious  stones.  All  its  streets  shall 
be  paved  with  white  and  clean  stones  ;  and  Alleluia  shall  be  sung  in  its  streets. 
Blessed  be  the  Lord  who  hath  exalted  it,  and  may  He  reign  in  it  for  ever, 
and  ever.  Amen."     Tobias  xiii.  20-23. 

"  And  the  building  of  the  wall  thereof  was  of  Jasper  stones,  but  the  city 
itself  pure  gold,  like  to  clear  glass. — And  the  foundation  of  the  walls  of  the 
city  were  adorned  with  all  manner  of  precious  stones.  The  first  foundation 
WBS  Jasper,  the  second,  Sapphire  ....  the  twelfth,  an  Amethyst.  And  the 
twelve  gates  are  twelve  pearls,  one  to  each  :  and  every  several  gate  was  of  one 
several  pearl. — And  the  street  of  the  city  was  pure  gold,  as  it  were  transparent 
glass."     Apocalypse  or  Rev.  xxi.  18-21. 

3.  "  But  they  that  did  not  receive  the  trials  with  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  but 
uttered  their  impatience,  and  the  reproach  of  their  murmuring  against  the 
Lord,  were  destroyed  by  the  destroyer  ;  and  perished  by  serpents."  Judith 
viii.  24,  25. 

"  Neither  let  us  tempt  Christ  as  some  of  them  tempted  and  perished  by  the 
serpents.  Neither  do  you  murmur :  as  some  of  them  murmured,  and  were 
destroyed  by  the  destroyer."     1  Cor.  x.  9,  10. 

4.  "  The  just  shall  shine,  and  shall  run  to  and  fro  like  sparks  among  the 
reeds."  Wisdom  iii.  7.  *'  Then  shall  the  just  shine  as  the  sun,  in  the  kingdom 
of  their  Father."     Matt.  xiii.  43. 

5.  "  They  (the  just)  shall  judge  nations  and  rule  over  people,  and  their 
Lord  shall  reign  for  ever."  Wisdom  iii.  8.  "  Know  you  not  that  the  saints 
shall  judge  the  world  ?   1  Cor.  vi.  2. 

6.  "  He  pleased  God  and  was  beloved,  and  living  among  sinners  he  was 
translated."  Wisdom  iv.  10.  "  By  faith  Enoch  was  translated  that  he  should 
not  see  death,  and  he  was  not  found,  because  God  had  translated  him.  For 
before  his  translation,  he  had  testimony  that  he  pleased  God."     Heb.  xi.  5. 

7.  "  For  she  (Wisdom)  is  the  brightness  of  Eternal  Light,  and  the  unspotted 
mirror  of  God's  Majesty,  and  the  image  of  His  goodness."  Wisdom  vii.  26. 
"  Who  (the  Son  of  God)  being  the  brightness  of  his  glory,  and  the  figure  of 
his  substance,  &c."     Heb.  i.  3.     See  also  2  Cor.  iv.  4,  and  Col.  i.  5. 


164  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

The  first  text  which  you  give  us  as  a  quotation  from  the 
Apocrypha,  is  the  golden  rule  of  our  Saviour:  "Therefore  all 

8.  '-'For  who  among  men  is  he  that  can  know  the  counsel  of  God  ?  or 
who  can  think  what  the  will  of  God  is?"  Wisdom,  ix.  13.  "For  who 
hath  known  the  mind  of  the  Lord  1  or  who  hath  been  his  counsellor  1" 
Rom.  xi.  34. 

9.  "  The  potter  also  tempering  soft  earth,  with  labor  fashioneth  every 
vessel  for  our  service  ;  and  of  the  same  clay  he  maketh  both  vessels  that  are 
for  clean  uses,  and  Ukewise  such  as  serve  to  the  contrary  ;  but  what  is  the  use 
of  these  vessels  the  potter  is  the  judge."  Wisdom  xv.  7.  "Or  hath  not  the 
potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto  honor, 
and  another  unto  dishonor."    Rom   ix.  21. 

10.  "  Or  if  they  admired  their  power  and  their  effects,  let  them  understand 
by  them,  that  he  who  made  them  is  mightier  than  they  ;  for  by  the  greatness 
of  the  beauty  and  the  creature,  the  Creator  of  them  may  be  seen,  so  as  to  be 
known  thereby."  Wisdom  xiii.  4,  5.  For  the  invisible  things  of  him,  from 
the  creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that 
are  made."     Rom.  i.  20. 

11.  "And  his  zeal  will  take  armor  and  he  will  arm  the  creature  for  the 
revenge  of  his  enemies.  He  will  put  on  justice  as  a  breastplate,  and  will  take 
true  judgment  instead  of  a  helmet.  He  will  take  equity  for  an  invincible 
shield  :  and  he  will  sharpen  his  severe  wrath  for  a  spear."  Wisdom  v.  18-21. 
"  Therefore  take  unto  you  the  armor  of  God,  that  you  may  be  able  to  resist 
in  the  evil  day  and  to  stand  in  all  things  perfect.  Stand,  therefore,  having  your 
loins  girt  about  with  truth,  and  having  on  the  breastplate  of  justice  ....  in  all 
things  taking  the  shield  of  faith,  wherewith  you  may  be  able  to  extinguish  all  the 
fiery  darts  of  the  most  wicked  one.  And  lake  unto  you  the  helmet  of  salva- 
tion ;  aftd  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  (which  is  the  word  of  God)."    Eph.  vi.  13-17. 

12.  "  They  that  fear  the  Lord,  will  not  be  incredulous  to  his  word  ;  and  they 
that  love  him  will  keep  his  way. — They  that  fear  the  Lord  will  seek  after 
the  things  that  are  well  pleasing  to  him :  and  they  that  love  him  shall  be 
filled  with  his  law  .  .  .  They  that  fear  the  Lord,  keep  his  commandments,  and 
will  have  patience,  even  until  his  visitation."  Ecclesiasticus  ii.  18-21.  "If 
any  one  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  word."     Jno.  xiv.  23. 

13.  "  My  son,  meddle  not  with  many  matters:  and  if  thou  be  rich,  thou 
shall  not  be  free  from  sin."  Eccle.  xi.  10.  "  For  they  that  will  become  rich, 
fall  into  temptation,  and  into  the  snare  of  the  devil,  and  into  many  unprofitable 
and  hurtful  desires,  which  drown  men  in  destruction  and  perdition."  1 
Tim.  vi.  9. 

14.  "  There  is  one  that  is  enriched  by  living  sparingly,  and  this  is  the 
portion  of  his  reward.  In  that  he  saith  :  I  have  found  me  rest,  and  now  I 
will  eat  my  goods  alone  ;  and  he  knoweth  not  what  time  shall  pass,  and  that 
death  approachelh,  and  that  be  must  leave  all  to  others  and  shall  die."     Eccle- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED     AND    REFUTED.  165 

things,  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye 
even  so  to  them  :  for  this  is  the  law  and  the  prophets."*  Matt, 
vii.  12;  Luke  vi.  31.  This  you  would  have  us  to  believe  was 
suggested  to  the  Saviour  by  Tobit  iv.  15,  which  in  the  Douay 
version  is  rendered,  **  See  thou  never  do  to  another  what  thou 
wouldest  hate  to  have  done  to  thee  by  another."  The  reader, 
however,  will  observe  that  this  is  not  a  translation  but  a  para- 
phrase. The  original  is:  o  fiiasig  fn,dsvi  noiricrr]?.  *'  What  thou 
hafest,  do  to  no  one."  Now  the  question  is,  whether  the  four 
words  that  constitute  the  substance  of  the  Apocryphal  passage, 
suggested  to  our  Lord  the  Jiftcen  words  which,  in  the  original, 
embody  the  golden  rule,  as  found  in  the  memorable  sermon  on 
the  mount.  There  is  evidently  no  quotation  in  the  case,  since 
there  is  but  a  single  word  which  they  have  in  common.  Nei- 
ther, on  the  other  hand,  is  there  any  such  coincidence  of  thought 
as  to  warrant  the  supposition  that  our  Saviour  had  in  his  mind 
the  passage  from  Tobit,  when  he  announced  the  principle  re- 
corded in  Matthew.  Our  Saviour's  precept,  as  Grotius  has  very 
properly  observed,  is  positive,  while  that  in  Tobit  is  negative. 
In  the  sermon  on  the  mount  our  Saviour  tells  us  what  to  per- 
form, and  Tobit,  in  his  instructions  to  his  son,  what  to  avoid  ; 
the  one  resolves  us  in  the  things  that  are  right,  and  the  other  in 
the  things  that  are  wrong.     One,  in  short,  is  a  command,  the 

xi.  18,  19,  20.  "And  I  (the  rich  man  in  the  parable)  will  say  to  my  soul: 
Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,  take  thy  rest  ;  eat,  drink, 
make  good  cheer.  But  God  said  to  him  :  Thou  fool,  this  night  do  they  require 
thy  soul  of  thee  ;  and  whose  shall  those  things  be  which  thou  hast  provided  V 
Luke  xii.  19,  20. 

15.  "If  thou  wilt  keep  the  commandments  and  perform  acceptable  fidelity 
for  ever,  they  shall  preserve  thee."  Eccle.  xv.  16.  "If  thou  wilt  enter  into 
life,  keep  the  commandments."  Matt.  xix.  17. 

16.  The  passage  of  St.  Paul:  "But  others  were  racked,  not  accepting 
deliverance,  that  they  might  find  a  better  resurrection  (Heb.  xi.  35),"  has 
been  acknowledged,  even  by  Protestant  commentators,  to  be,  and  evidently  is, 
a  reference  to  the  account  of  the  martyrdom  of  Eleazer,  given  in  the  second 
book  of  Maccabees,  vi.  18-31. 

*  Huetius,  who  also  gives  the  golden  rule  as  a  quotation  from  this  passage 
of  Tobit,  admits,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  might  have  been  suggested  as  a  dic- 
tate of  nature.     Demonstratio  Evangel,  vol.  i.  p.  307.     De  Libro  Tobia. 


J  66  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Other  a.  prohibition.  There  is  no  more  coincidence  of  thought 
betwixt  these  two  passages,  than  between  Exod.  xx.  15,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  steal,''  and  Rom.  xiii.  7,  "  Render  therefore  to  all  their 
dues''  And  yet,  who  would  dream  of  maintaining  that  the  pre- 
cept of  Paul  is  either  a  literal  quotation  of  the  eighth  command- 
ment, or  was  necessarily  suggested  by  the  form  in  which  it  is 
recorded  in  the  book  of  Exodus?  "  What  thou  hatest,"  says 
Tobit,  "  do  to  none;"  "  What  thou  lovest,"  says  our  Saviour  sub- 
stantially, "  do  to  all."  If,  now,  our  Saviour  quoted  from  Tobit, 
upon  the  same  principle  of  criticism  every  positive,  contrary  to 
the  usual  order  of  thought,  must  be  suggested  by  its  correspond- 
ing negative.  But  our  Saviour  himself  has  put  the  matter  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  doubt.  The  rule  which  he  gave  us  was  a 
compendious  expression  of  the  moral  instructions  of  the  laio  and 
ihe  prophets.  As  you  have  freely  acknowledged  that  the  Apoc- 
ryphal writings  were  not  to  be  found  in  the  canon  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  you  will  hardly  contend  that  the  "  law  and  the  pro- 
phets" embraced  any  of  those  books  which  Josephiis  mentions  as 
not  being  possessed  of  equal  authority  with  the  twenty-two  which 
he  had  previously  enumerated.  You  will  also  admit,  for  it 
would  certainly  be  useless  to  deny,  that  the  canonical  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  were  divided  into  three  classes  :  the  Law, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  Hagiographa.  Now,  if  the  Saviour  him- 
self is  to  be  trusted,  his  memorable  rule  must  have  been  sug- 
gested by  something  which  is  found,  not  in  any  Apocryphal  wri- 
ter, but  in  the  law  and  the  prophets — in  the  acknowledged  canon 
of  the  Jewish  Church.  His  sermon  on  the  mount  is  in  fact  a 
divine  exposition  of  the  ethical  code  which  is  contained  in  the 
Old  Testament,  with  special  reference  to  the  corruptions  and 
abuses  which  ignorant  and  wicked  teachers  had  introduced  and 
fostered.  He  explains  the  moral  law,  and  maintains  its  strict- 
ness, purity,  and  extent,  in  opposition  to  the  destructive  glosses  of 
the  Scribes,  Pharisees,  and  Doctors. 

-^  The  golden  rule  itself  is  evidently  nothing  but  a  statement,  in 
another  form,  of  the  principle  o{  universal  Icve.  Our  own  ex- 
pectations from  others  are  made  the  standard  of  our  conduct 
towards  them — that  is,  our  love  to  ourselves  is  to  be  the  exact 
measure  of  our  love  to  other  men.     The  passage  in  Matt.  xxii. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  167 

35-40,  will  throw  additional  light  upon  this  whole  subject.  Our 
Saviour  there  condenses  the  law  into  two  great  commandments, 
love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  and  then  adds,  that  "  on  these  two 
commandments  hang  all  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.''  It  is  evi- 
dent, therefore,  that  Matt.  vii.  12  teaches  precisely  the  same 
thing  as  Matt.  xxii.  39 — "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self," and  this  passage  is  a  literal  quotation,  not  from  Tobit,  but 
from  the  book  of  Leviticus  (xix.  18).  This  was  the  text  upon 
which  our  Saviour's  mind  was  unquestionably  fixed  when  he 
announced  his  celebrated  maxim ;  it  was,  in  fact,  constantly 
before  his  eyes,  and  so  frequently  explained,  as  well  as  earnestly 
inculcated  and  enforced  by  so  many  new  and  peculiar  sanctions, 
as  to  be  almost  entitled  to  the  name  of  a  new  commandment. 
Between  the  rule  in  Leviticus,  and  the  precept  of  our  Saviour, 
there  is  an  exact  coincidence  of  thought.  Both  are  positive — 
and  both  make  our  recrard  for  ourselves  the  standard  of  our  treat- 
ment  to  others.  One  is  the  text  and  the  other  a  faithful  com- 
mentary. *'  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  says  the  Law. 
"  What  you  would  love  to  have  done  to  you,  do  to  others,"  says 
the  Saviour.  How  it  could  fail  to  strike  your  attention  that  the 
passage  in  Leviticus  was  especially  before  the  mind  of  our  Re- 
deemer, when  he  refers  you  so  distinctly  to  the  Law,  surpasses 
my  comprehension.  Can  it  be,  sir,  that  your  Biblical  reading 
is  confined  exclusively,  so  far  as  the  Old  Testament  is  concerned, 
to  books  which  possess  no  other  authority  but  that  of  man  ?  I 
can  well  conceive  that  the  book  of  Tobit  would  be  peculiarly  a 
favorite  with  the  votaries  of  Rome.  It  is  pervaded  with  such  a 
tinge  of  superstition,  nonsense,  heresy,  and  will-worship,  as  to 
give  it  a  powerful  charm  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  bear  the  image 
of  the  beast. 

"  A  fellow-feeling  makes  us  wondrous  kind." 

You  are  hardly  more  successful  in  your  attempt  to  deduce 
the  magnificent  description  of  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem  in  the 
Apocalypse  of  John,  from  what  you  suppose  to  be  a  correspond- 
ing passage  in  the  same  Book  of  Tobit.*  You  have  again  fol- 
lowed the  Douay  version,  which,  however  it  may  agree  with  the 
Vulgate,  does  not  precisely  render  the  original.  The  English 
*  Vide  Huetii  Demonstratio,  vol.  i.  p.  307.     Libre  Tobiae. 


168  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

reader  will  find  the  passage  to  which  you  refer  in  Tobit  xiii.  IS- 
IS, of  the  authorized  translation. 

There  can  be  evidently  no  quotation  in  this  passage,  since 
John  is  describing  a  vision,  just  as  he  saw  it.  He  saw  the  jas- 
per,  gold,  and  precious  stones  which  adorned  the  foundations  of 
the  holy  city,  and  testifies  what  he  had  seen.  He  does  not  pre- 
tend to  give  us  a  picture  of  the  fancy,  but  a  real  view ;  and  of 
course  his  language  must  be  suggested  by  the  things  themselves. 
In  such  descriptions,  quotations  may  be  introduced  to  embellish 
or  adorn,  but  most  assuredly  the  names  of  things  themselves  must 
he  suggested  by  the  objects  before  the  mind.  Again,  the  whole 
description  is  so  strikingly  analogous  to  several  passages  in  Isaiah 
and  Ezekiel,  that  if  there  be  any  allusion  to  other  writers  at  all, 
it  is  to  these  venerable  prophets.  The  twelve  gates  in  the  vision 
of  John  correspond  precisely  to  the  twelve  gates  in  the  vision  of 
Ezekiel  (xlviii.  31-34).  The  golden  reed  with  which  the  angel 
measured  the  city,  and  the  gates  thereof,  and  the  wall  thereof, 
may  be  in  allusion  to  the  measuring  reed  and  the  line  of  flax  in 
Ezekiel  xl.  3.  The  garnishing  of  the  foundations  of  the  wall 
with  all  manner  of  precious  stones,  corresponds  with  the  promise 
of  Isaiah  (liv.  11,  12)  ;  "I  wijl  lay  thy  stones  with  fair  colors, 
and  lay  thy  foundation  with  sapphires.  And  I  will  make  thy 
windows  of  agates,  and  thy  gates  of  carbuncles,  and  all  thy  bor- 
ders of  pleasant  stones."  The  brilliant  illumination  of  the  city  by 
the  presence  of  God,  is  iti  exact  accordance  with  Isaiah  xxiv. 
23;  Ix.  19,  20.  The  truth  is,  these  precious  stones  with  which 
the  city  was  adorned,  as  seen  by  John,  are  the  common  and  fa- 
miliar figures  by  which  the  glory  of  the  church  is  constantly 
depicted  in  the  sacred  writers.  The  splendid  decorations  of 
Solomon's  temple,  independently  of  any  other  cause,  would  nat- 
urally suggest  these  symbolical  embellishments.  That  they  occur, 
consequently,  in  different  writers,  and  in  the  same  connection,  is 
no  proof  whatever  of  quotation  or  reference,  it  only  shows  a 
familiar  and  common  method  of  illustration.  If  the  church,  for 
instance,  be  compared  to  a  kingdom,  two  or  a  dozen  writers 
might  describe  its  peculiarities  in  conformity  with  this  scriptural 
metaphor,  and  yet  be  ignorant  of  each  other's  compositions.  The 
metaphor  itself  would  suggest  analogous  trains  of  thought.     So 


ArOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  ]  69 

when  the  church  is  compared  to  a  city,  to  a  splendid  and  mag- 
nificent city,  the  usual  appendages  of  walls,  gates,  and  ornaments 
will  be  obviously  presented  to  the  mind  ;  or  if  it  be  compared 
to  a  temple,  the  splendor  and  pomp  of  Solomon's  un])aralleled 
edifice  would  probably  be  the  first  association  in  a  Jewish  under- 
stand in  or. 

It  manifests,  therefore,  nothing  but  consummate  ignorance 
of  the  laws  of  thought,  to  suppose  that  the  description  of  the 
holy  city  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John  must  needs  be  taken  from 
the  rhapsody  ofTobit,  because  both  speak  of  walls  and  founda- 
tions, jasper,  amethyst,  and  gold.  It  is  much  more  probable  that 
Tobit  borrowed  from  Chronicles,  Ezekiel,  and  Isaiah. 

Your  attempt  to  make  I  Cor.  x.  9,  10,  a  quotation  from 
Judith,  is  too  ridiculous  to  need  refutation.*  Paul  is  appealino- 
to  the  recorded  history  of  the  "  fathers,"  as  furnishing  salutary 
examples  of  practical  instruction.  He  gives  us,  consequently,  a 
brief  summary  of  the  leading  events  connected  with  their  re- 
moval from  Egypt,  and  their  ultimate  settlement  in  Canaan. 
This  summary,  of  course,  is  taken  from  the  history  itself.  It  is 
just  an  epitome  of  what  niay  be  found  fully  recorded  in  the  books 
of  Moses.  The  passage  in  Judith,  therefore,  is  just  as  much  a 
quotation  from  the  Pentateuch  as  that  of  Paul.     Strictly,  how- 

*  "  Thirdly,  in  favor  of  the  book  of  Judith,  they  bring  two  citations,  one 
made  by  St.  Paul  when  he  said — they  were  destroyed  by  the  destroyer — and 
another  by  St.  James,  who  said,  the  Scripture  ic as  fulfilled ,  and  Ahraham  was 
called  the  friend  of  God ;  both  which  passages  (if  there  were  any  credit  to  be 
given  to  Serarius)  are  borrowed  out  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  Judith,  as  we  read 
them  in  the  Latin  paraphrase  of  that  book :  for  in  the  Greek  copies,  there  is 
never  a  word  like  them  to  be  found.  But  whom  shall  the  Jesuit  persuade  that 
the  apostles  quoted  ^  Latin  paraphrase, -which  wns  noi  ex[txwt  in  their  time? 
Or  if  we  should  grant  that  the  Greek  or  Chaldean  copies  had  as  much  in  them 
of  old,  as  the  Latin  hath  now,  yet  who  would  believe  that  St.  Paul  and  St. 
James  alluded  rather  to  the  book  of  Judith  than  to  the  book  of  Numbers,* 
where  they  that  were  destroyed  by  the  destroyer,  are  upon  record  at  large, 
and  to  the  book  of  Genesis,^  where  the  story  of  Abraham  is  recited,  together 
with  the  second  book  of  the  Chronicles^  where  Abraham  is  called  the  Friend 
of  God,  and  the  book  of  Esay''  where  God  himself  saiih  of  him,"  Abraham  my 
friend."     Cosin,  Scholast.  Hist.  Can.  p.  25. 

1)  Numbers  xiv.  16.        2)  Gen.  xv.  16.        3)  2  Chron.  \x.  7.        4)  Isaiah  xli.  8, 


170  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

ever,  neither  passage  is  a  quotation.  Both  writers  have  simply, 
availed  themselves  of  the  same  facts,  to  inculcate  lessons  of  piety 
and  wisdom. 

Your  fourth  passage  is  equally  unfortunate.  Matthew  xiii. 
43,  is  not  a  quotation  from  the  book  of  Wisdom,  but  is  a  palpa- 
ble allusion  to  Daniel  xi.  3,  and  Proverbs  iv.  IS.  The  passage 
in  Matthew  is,  "  Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun 
in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father."  The  passage  in  Wisdom  is, 
"  In  the  time  of  their  visitation,  they  shall  shine  and  run  to  and 
fro  like  sparks  among  the  stubble." 

Now  how  is  it  possible  that  "  running  to  and  fro  like  sparks 
among  the  stubble,"  could  ever  suggest  the  idea  of  the  brilliancy 
of  the  sun  in  the  firmament  of  heaven  1  If  in  the  book  of  Wis- 
dom it  had  been  written,  that  the  righteous  should  be  like  glow- 
worms or  fire-flies,  there  would  have  been  just  as  solid  founda- 
tions for  saying  that  this  gave  rise  to  the  magnificent  image  of 
the  Saviour  in  depicting  the  fate  of  the  just  at  the  end  of  the 
world.  The  expression  in  Daniel  is  suited  to  the  dignity  of  the 
subject — "  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament ;"  or  as  it  is  in  Proverbs,  "  The  path  of  the  just  is  as 
the  shining  light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day." 

Equally  futile  is  your  attempt  to  make  1  Cor.  vi.  2,  a  quota- 
tion from  Wisdom  iii.  8.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  another  form  of 
stating  the  promise  that  the  kingdom  and  the  greatness  of  the 
kingdom  under  the  whole  heaven,  shall  be  given  to  the  people  of 
the  saints  of  the  most  High  God.  Paul  had  before  his  mind  the 
ultimate  triumphs  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  the  burden 
of  prophetic  inspiration,  and  the  constant  subject  of  believing 
prayer.  We  have  precisely  the  same  idea  in  Psalms  xlix.  14 — 
"  Like  sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave;  death  shall  feed  on 
them  ;  and  the  upright  shall  have  dominion  over  them  in  the 
morning.'"  And  in  Daniel  vii.  32 — ''''  Judgment  was  given  to  the 
saints  of  the  Most  High;  and  the  time  came  that  the  saints  pos- 
sessed the  kingdom." 

Wisdom*  iv.   10,  and  Hebrews  xi.  15,   are  both  in  pointed 

*  "  In  the  first  place,  for  the  canonizing  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  they  pro- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  171 

reference  to  Genesis  v.  22-24,  and  therefore  neither  is  a  quota- 
tion from  the  other.  Paul  was  not  in  the  habit  of  dealing  with 
second-hand  authorities.  He  therefore  goes  to  the  original 
record  for  the  history  of  Enoch,  and  not  to  a  doubtful  and  obscure 
writer  some  centuries  afterwards. 

On  comparing  Heb.  i.  3,  with  Wisdom  vii.  26,  there  is  but 
a  single  word  which  they  possess  in  common.  The  ideas  are 
evidently  not  the  same  ;  Paul  is  treating  of  a  person  and  the  au- 
thor of  Wisdom  of  an  attribute.  How  the  use  of  a  solitary  word 
can  establish  a  coincidence  in  the  passages  themselves,  I  am 
utterly  unable  to  comprehend.     To  make  out  a  quotation  or  a 


duce  St.  Paul,  and  say  that  Rom.  xi.  34  (Who  hath  made  known  the  mind  of  the 
Lord,  or  who  hath  been  his  counsellor  ?)  is  taken  out  of  Wisdom  ix.  13.  (For 
what  man  is  he  that  can  know  the  counsel  of  God,  or  who  can  think  what  the 
will  of  the  Lord  is?)  But  Gretser  is  somewhat  ashamed  of  this  instance  ;  and 
our  answer  to  it  is,  that  the  sentence  which  St.  Paul  citeth  is  clearly  taken  out 
of  Esay  xl.  13,  where  both  the  sense  and  the  words  (in  that  translation  which 
the  Apostle  followed)  are  altogether  the  same,  as  in  the  book  of  Wisdom  they 
are  not.  Secondly,  as  much  may  we  say  to  what  they  note  upon  Heb.  i.  3. 
where  Christ  is  called  the  brightness  of  his  Father's  glory,  alluding  to  Sap.  vii. 
26,  where  Wisdom  is  called  the  brightness  of  everlasting  light.  For  as  it  is 
not  certain  whether  St.  Paul  ever  saw  that  Book  of  Wisdom  or  no,  which,  for 
aught  we  know,  was  not  extant  before  his  time,  nor  compiled  by  any  other  au- 
thor than  Philo,  the  Hellenist  Jew  of  Alexandria,  so  there  be  several  expres- 
sions in  the  undoubted  Scriptures,  concerning  the  representation,  the  splendor, 
the  wisdom  and  the  glory  of  God,  whereunto  he  might  allude  in  this  his  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  as  he  had  done  before  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  and  in 
his  second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  setting  forth  Christ  there  to  be  the  image 
of  the  invisible  God  and  the  first-born  of  every  creature,  by  ivhom  all  things 
were  created  and  do  still  consist  ;  the  substance  and  ground  whereof  may  be 
found  in  Ezekiel  i.28  ;  Isaiah  ix.  6,  and  Ix.  1  ;  Psalms  ii.  7,  and  cxxxvi.  5  ;  2 
Samuel  vii.  14  ;  Jeremiah  li.  15,  and  x.  12,  to  some  of  which  places  the  Apos- 
tle himself  refers  in  this  place  to  the  Hebrews.  Thirdly,  that  which  is  said  of 
Enoch  (Heb.  xi.  5)  needs  not  the  Book  of  Wi.sdom  to  confirm  it,  for  the  story 
is  clear  in  Genesis,  and  in  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint  (which  St.  Paul 
followed)  the  words  are  alike.  Fourthly,  that  the  powers  which  be  are  ordained 
of  God  was  said  by  the  wisdom  of  God  itself  in  Solomon  (Prov.  viii.  1.5,  16)  ; 
and,  fifthly,  that  God  is  no  accepter  of  persons  is  taken  out  of  the  words  of 
Moses  in  Deuteronomy  (x.  7).  And  yet  there  are,  that  refer  both  these  max- 
ims to  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  as  if  St.  Paul  had  found  them  nowhere  else." — 
Cosin,Scholast.  Hist.  Can.  p.  23,24. 


172  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

reference,  there  must  be  either  identity  of  expression  or  identity 
of  thought,  and  where  neither  is  found,  no  quotation  exists. 

Romans  xi.  34,  if  quoted  at  all,  is  quoted  from  Isaiah  and 
not  from  Wisdom.  The  prominent  idea  of  the  passage  frequently 
occurs  both  in  Job  and  the  Prophet :  Job  xv.  8,  Isaiah  Ix. 
18,  &.C.  The  analogry  in  Rom.  ix.  21,  occurs  in  Jeremiah  and 
Proverbs  as  well  as  the  book  of  Wisdom  :  Jer.  xviii.  6,  Prov. 
xvi.  4.  Romans  i.  20  is  a  plain  allusion  to  the  nineteenth 
Psalm.  The  passage  in  Ephes.  vi.  13-20,  is  much  more  analo- 
gous to  Isaiah  lix.  17,  than  to  any  thing  that  occurs  in  the  book 
of  Wisdom.  It  is  evidently,  however,  an  original  passage.  The 
preceding  train  of  thought  naturally  and  obviously  suggested  this 
beautiful  account  of  Christian  armor;  it  grew  almost  unavoida- 
bly out  of  the  metaphor  employed. 

Romans  i.  20,  is  in  evident  allusion  to  Psalm  xix.  1,  and  not, 
as  you  pretend,  to  Wisdom  xiii.  4-5. 

The  connection  between  love  and  obedience  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar  and  common  ideas  in  the  whole  Pentateuch.  You 
will  find  it  in  Deut.  vi.  5,  6 ;  x.  12,  &:.c. ;  and  it  is  just  this  con- 
nection which  our  Saviour  insists  on  in  John  xiv.  15 — 22 

Proverbs  xv.  27,  xx.  21,  are  much  more  analogous  to  1  Tim. 
vi.  9,  than  the  passage  which  you  have  extracted  from  Ecclesias- 
ticus.  The  train  of  thought  in  the  parable  of  the  rich  fool  in  the 
gospel,  might  have  been  more  readily  discovered  in  the  Psalms 
of  David  than  the  obscure  authority  to  which  you  have  referred 
us.    (See  Ps.  Ixix.  10  seq.) 

Matthew  xix.  17,  is  plainly  a  reference  to  Levit.  xviii.  5. 
That  Hebrews  xi.  35,  contains  a  reference  to  2  Maccabees  vi. 
18-31,  in  which  an  account  is  given  of  the  martyrdom  of  Eleaj 
zar,  is  not  so  certain  as  you  seem  to  apprehend  ;  even  if  it  were 
certain,  nothing  is  proved  but  the  historical  fidelity  of  the  narra- 
tive, which  is  far  from  being  identical  with  inspiration.* 

*  Where  for  the  persons,  the  matter  is  not  so  sure.  For  other  men  are  of 
another  mind  ;  and  Paulus  Burgensis  (whose  additions  have  the  honor,  even 
among  the  Romanists  themselves,  to  be  printed  with  Lyra's  Notes  and  the  or- 
dinary gloss  upon  the  Bible)  understands  not  St.  Paul  here  to  have  spoken  of 
Eleazar  and  his  brethren  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  but  of  the  saints  and 
martyrs  of  God  that  had  been  tortured  in  his  own  time,  under  the  New  Tes- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  173 

I  have  now  noticed  the  several  instances  in  which  you  pro- 
fess to  have  discovered  traces  of  the  Apocrypha  in  the  writers  of 
the  New  Testament;  and  I  think  that  any  candid  reader  must  be 
fully  convinced  that  in  every  case  in  which  an  allusion  exists  at 
all,  it  is  to  the  Jewish  canon,  and  not  to  the  corrupt  additions  of 
the  Council  of  Trent.  But  still  nothing  would  be  gained  by  sat- 
isfactory proof  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  made  use  of  the 
Apocrypha.  Mere  quotations  prove  nothing  but  the  existence  of 
the  books  from  which  they  are  made.  Paul  introduces  lines 
from  the  heathen  poets  in  various  parts  of  his  writings,  and 
many  have  supposed  that  a  striking  analogy  subsists  between 
portions  of  the  gospel  of  John  and  the  speculations  of  Philo.  No- 
thing is  gained,  therefore,  in  behalf  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Apocryphal  books,  by  proving  that  quotations  were  made  from 
them  by  Christ  and  his  apostles.  This  may  have  been  done  and 
yet  the  books  themselves  be  entitled  to  no  more  reverence  than 
Tully's  Offices  or  Seneca's  Epistles.* 

In  the  progress  of  this  discussion,  your  profound  ignorance 
of  the  word  of  God  has  struck  me  with  painful  and  humiliating 
force.  The  only  books  in  the  whole  Bible  which  you  seem  to 
have  studied  at  all,  are  those  which  the  Church  of  God,  in  an- 
cient and  modern  times,  has  unanimously  excluded  from  the  sa- 
cred canon.  The  Law  and  the  Prophets,  to  which  our  Saviour 
so  often  alludes,  seem  to  be  utterly  unknown  to  you;   and  how- 

tament.  And  for  the  canonical  authority  of  the  book  (if  any  book  be  here  cited), 
whatever  it  was,  the  reference  here  made  to  it  gave  it  no  more  authority  of 
authentic  Scripture,  tlian  the  words  immediately  following  gave  to  another  re- 
ceived story  among  the  Hebrews,  that  Esay  the  Prophet  was  sawn  asunder  to 
death.  Whereunto,  though  the  Apostle  might  have  reference,  when  he  said 
{they  were  stoned,  they  were  sawn  asunder,  were  tempted,  were  slain  with  the 
sword,  they  wandered  about  in  sheepskins  and  goatskins,  being  destitute,  af- 
flicted, tormented,)  yet  whoever  made  all  these  instances,  before  St.  Paul  wrote 
them,  to  be  authentic  and  canonical  Scripture  ?  or  who  can  with  reason  deny 
(if  Monsieur  Perron's  reason  were  good)  but  that  the  story  of  Esay's  death 
ought  to  be  canonized,  as  well  as  the  story  of  Eleazar  and  his  seven  brethren  in 
the  Maccabees  ;  seeing  there  is  as  much  reason  for  the  one  as  can  be  given  for 
the  other." — Cosin.  Scholast.  Hist.  Can.  p.  27,  28. 

*  Vide,  on  this  subject  of  quotations,  Rainoldi  Censura  Librorum  Apoc.vol.i. 
p.  77,  Praelectio  7. 


174  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

ever  clear  his  references  to  these  venerable  documsnts,  your 
sagacity  can  seize  upon  nothing  but  Tobit,  Judith,  and  Wisdom. 
The  instinct  of  superriiition  is  too  strong  for  argument  or  criti- 
cal skill.  If  you  find  a  single  phrase  which  can  be  tortured  into 
a  remote  approximation  to  coincidence  of  thought,  you  instantly 
leap  for  joy,  like  Archimedes  from  his  bath,  and  expose  your  lit- 
erary nakedness  in  the  ecstacy  of  your  foolish  delight.  In  a  clumsy 
paraphase  of  a  passage  in  Tobit,  you  scent  oul  the  golden  rule 
of  the  Son  of  God,  though  that  rule  had  been  revealed  centuries 
before  Tobit  was  born  or  blind,  in  the  law  of  the  Lord.  In  that 
same  precious  compound  of  superstition  and  folly  you  meet  with 
something  about  the  city  of  the  Jews  adorned  with  gold,  jasper, 
and  precious  stones,  and  behold  !  the  magnificent  description  of 
the  entranced  apostle  dwindles  down  into  a  puerile  plagiarism; 
sparks  and  stubble  give  you  the  clue  to  the  glorious  picture  which 
our  Saviour  has  drawn  of  the  final  condition  of  the  blessed,  and 
Paul  cannot  allude  to  the  ultimate  triumphs  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  without  being  indebted  to  a  feeble  passage  in  the  book  of 
Wisdom.  Sir,  these  are  the  fooleries  of  criticism.  They  show 
any  thing  but  the  hand  of  a  master  or  the  pen  of  a  scholar.  There 
was  an  effort  to  destroy  the  fame  of  the  author  of  Paradise  Lost, 
by  robbing  him  of  the  praise  of  original  invention,  in  his  noble 
production.  The  immortal  bard  was  denounced  as  dL plagiarist. 
Permit  me  to  say  that  your  folly  is  as  great,  although  your  inge- 
nuity is  not  so  acute  as  that  displayed  by  the  wretched  slanderer 
of  the  greatest,  brightest,  most  glorious  name  that  adorns  the 
annals  of  English  literature.  The  case  was  much  more  plausibly 
made  out  that  Milton  borrowed  from  obscurer  men,  than  that 
Christ  and  his  apostles  have  quoted  from  the  Apocrypha. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  175 


LETTER  XI. 

Exclu.<ion  of  the  Apocrypha  from  the  Jewisli  canon. — Definition  of  the  term  canon  ;  account 
of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  formed.— Tiie  evidence  necessary  to  make  a  book  canon- 
ical.— The  dist  netion  between  not  receiving  and  rejecting  a  book  shown  to  be  false. 

I  HAVE  now  reached  the  third  partition  of  your  letters,  in 
which  you  attempt,  whether  successfully  or  not  remains  yet  to 
be  determined,  to  refute  my  arguments  against  the  inspiration  of 
the  Apocrypha.  You  have  undertaken  to  show  that  the  au- 
thors of  these  books  wrote  "  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  and  that  their  productions  are,  by  consequenee,  entitled 
to  equal  veneration  and  authority  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and 
the  Psalms.  Your  great  argument,  based  upon  the  fiction  of 
papal  infallibility,  has  been  already  "  shorn  of  its  beams,"  and  if 
it  should  appear  to  your  mind,  as  it  does  to  mine,  in  *'  dim 
eclipse,  scattering  disastrous  twilight"  around  it,  I  hope  that 
your  failure  in  presenting  it  will  teach  you  a  lesson  of  modesty, 
hereafter,  and  guard  you  effectually  from  undertaking  a  subject 
too  high  for  your  abilities. 

As  your  refutation  begins  with  a  desultory  notice  of  my  first 
argument,  it  will  be  necessary  to  present  the  argument  itself  dis- 
tinctly but  briefly,  and  then  discuss  the  validity  of  your  reply.  I 
assumed  as  true  what  is  cnpable  of  being  proved  by  abundant 
testimony,  and  what  you  yourself  have  freely  admitted,  that  these 
books  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  Jewish  canon.  The  question 
naturally  arises  why  they  were  excluded,  or,  what  is  substantially 
the  same,  why  they  were  not  introduced  :  my  answer  was,  be- 
cause they  were  not  inspired.  That  their  exclusion  from  the  Jew- 
ish canon  is  satisfactory  evidence  to  us  that  they  were  destitute 
of  divine  authority,  was  made  to  appear  from  a  very  simple  and 
conclusive  process  of  reasoning.  If  they  were  inspired,  the 
canon  of  the  Jews  was  evidently  defective,  as  it  failed  to  present 
the  whole  rule  of  faith  which  God  had  revealed  to  the  church. 
But  that  no  such  defect  existed  in  their  sacred  library,  was  made 
to  appear  frotn  the  silence  of  our  Saviour,  who  nowhere  insinu- 
ates that  their  standard  of  faith  was  incomplete,  and,  what  is  still 
more   conclusive,   from   his  recorded  approbation  of  the   Jewish 


176  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

canon  just  as  it  stood.  Their  canon,  then,  could  not  possibly 
have  been  defective,  and,  therefore,  the  Apocrypha  could  not 
possibly  have  been  inspired.  The  leading  proposition  of  my 
argument  was  of  that  peculiar  species  in  which  the  destruction 
or  removal  of  the  consequent  is,  by  logical  necessity,  the  destruc- 
tion or  removal  of  the  antecedent.  The  only  points,  therefore, 
in  which  the  schoolmen  would  have  informed  you,  this  argu- 
ment could  have  been  successfully  assailed,  were  in  the  connec- 
tion of  the  two  propositions  which  constitute  the  hypothesis  on 
which  it  rests,  or  the  validity  of  the  process  by  which  the  conse- 
quent was  denied.  To  give  a  complete  and  satisfactory  refuta- 
tion, you  would  be  required  to  show,  either  that  the  rejection  of 
the  Apocrypha  from  the  canon  of  the  Jews,  though  written 
by  inspiration  of  God,  did  not  render  it  defective,  or  that  the 
canon  was  not  sanctioned  as  complete  by  Jesus  Christ  and  his 
apostles. 

As  to  the  first,  you  have  entirely  mistaken  the  point  of  my 
argument,  in  supposing  that  it  turned  essentially  upon  the  proof 
of  moral  delinquency  in  the  Jews  in  excluding  the  Apocrypha 
from  their  sacred  library.  It  is  true,  sir,  that  I  cannot  conceive 
how  the  writers  of  those  books  could  possibly  have  been  prophets^ 
and  yet  no  evidence  of  the  fact  be  made  to  appear  until  centu- 
ries after  they  were  dead.  If  they  had  been  seni  of  God  as  teach- 
ers to  their  own  generation,  or  to  generations  which  were  then 
unborn,  some  credentials  of  their  divine  commission  would  seem 
to  be  essential.  They  would  either  have  been  charged  with  the 
power  of  performing  wonders  which  none  could  achieve  unless 
God  were  with  him,  or  their  heavenly  vocation  would  have  been 
attested  by  those  who  were  known  to  be  possessed  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  There  would  surely  have  been  some  evidence,  enough  to 
constitute  an  adequate  foundation  of  faith,  that  these  writers  were 
messengers  of  God,  declaring  the  things  which  they  had  received 
from  him.  In  conformity  with  the  old  logical  maxim  "  c?e  non 
existentibns  et  non  apparentibus  eadem  est  ratio^^  they  might 
just  as  well  not  be  inspired  at  all,  as  not  be  able  to  authenticate 
the  fact.  Unproved  inspiration  is  to  the  reader  no  inspiration. 
Hence  I  did  not  regard  it  as  a  violent  assumption,  that  if  these 
men  were  really  inspired,  there  must  have  existed  satisfactory 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    ItLFUTED.  177 

evidence  of  their  divine  illumination.  You  yourself  have  told  us  . 
that  "  when  Almighty  God  designed  to  inspire  the  works  con- 
tained in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  he  intended  they  should  be  held 
and  believed  to  be  inspired.'^  Accordingly,  sir,  the  authors  of 
the  Apocrypha  must  have  presented  to  their  cotemporaries  such 
attestations  of  their  commission  from  heaven  as  to  have  rendered 
obedience  imperative,  and  faith  indispensable.  The  Jews,  there- 
fore, in  rejecting  their  productions  from  the  sacred  canon,  must 
have  resisted  the  authority  of  God,  and,  in  pronouncing  them 
not  to  be  inspired,  must  have  been  guilty  of  a  flagrant  fraud.  ^ 
The  charge  of  fraud,  however,  which,  of  course,  is  hypotheti- 
cally  made,  is  only  incidentally  introduced,  and  does  not  consti- 
tute, as  in  your  reply  you  seem  to  have  supposed,  the  essence  of 
the  argument.  It  was  urged  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  setting  in 
a  strong  light,  the  moral  necessity,  which  to  my  mind  seemed  to 
rest  u[)on  the  Saviour,  of  vindicating  the  authority  of  these 
books,  if,  as  you  pretend,  they  were  really  the  w'ord  of  God. 

The  real  difficulty  which  the  Romanist  is  required  to  explain 
is,  how  a  document  could  be  perfect  and  complete,  when  one 
fifth  of  its  pages  were  actually  omitted.  Every  book  which  God 
hud  given  to  the  Jews,  through  the  divine  inspiration  of  his 
prophets,  was  entitled  to  be  a  part  of  their  rule  of  faith ;  and  a 
complete  collection  of  such  books  would  constitute  their  eanon, 
or  entire  rule  of  faith.  Now,  if  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired 
productions,  even  Trent  being  witness,  they  were  canonical,  and, 
therefore,  their  presence  was  indispensably  essential  to  the  integ- 
rity of  the  canon.  They  were  a  part  of  the  rule  which  God  had 
given,  and  yet  our  Saviour  treats  the  riile  as  perfect  when  it  is 
miserably  cheated  of  its  fair  proportions — that  is,  upon  this  new 
system  of  papal  mathematics,  some  of  the  parts  are  made  equal  to 
the  whole.  Such,  sir,  is  the  substance  of  the  argument  which 
you  were  required  to  answer.  Every  step  was  so  plainly  stated 
in  my  original  essay,  that  I  do  not  see  how  you  failed  to  under- 
stand it.  Now,  sir,  wha-t  is  your  answer?  To  what  you  con- 
ceive to  be  the  leading  proposition  of  my  argument,  you  have 
nothing  to  reply  but  that  the  Jews  might  possibly  have  been  ig- 
norant of  the  supernatural  character  of  the  books,  or  that  no 
public  tribunal  existed,  possessed  of  legitiniate  authority  to  intro- 

9 


178  ROxMANlST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

diice  them  into  the  canon.*  Your  answer  consists,  in  other 
words,  of  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  pitiful  defence  of  the  hon- 
esty of  the  Jews  !  The  ancient  people  of  God  were  guilty  of  no 
fraud,  in  rejecting  a  host  of  canonical  books  because  they  had 
not  the  means  of  ascertaining  that  the  books  were  inspired  ! 
They  were  not  to  blame.  God  had  furnished  them  with  no  satis- 
factory proofs  that  the  Apocryphal  authors  were  his  prophets, 
and,  therefore,  they  were  not  at  liberty  to  treat  their  composi- 
tions as  clothed  with  divine  authority  !  Your  answer,  sir,  is  such 
a  wonderful  specimen  of  reasoning,  that  you  must  excuse  me  for 
presenting  it  and  my  argument  in  the  form  of  conditional  syllo- 
gisms. My  argument  was,  if  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired,  the 
canon  of  the  Jews  was  defective,  but  the  canon  of  the  Jews  was 
not  defective,  therefore  the  Apocrypha  were  not  inspired^  Now^ 
the  reader  will  observe  that  the  validity  of  the  argument  does 
not  depend  upon  the  causes  which  induced  the  Jews  to  exclude 
the  Apocrypha,  but  simply  upon  the  fact,  that  they  7vcre  exclud- 
ed. The  causes  might  have  been  ignorance  or  fraud  ;  as  I  inti- 
mated in  the  original  essay,  the  fact  is  all  that  is  essential. 
Your  answer  is  :  If  there  is  not  satisfactory  evidence  that  a  book 
is  inspired,  there  is  no  fraud  in  excluding  it  from  the  canon. 
There  was  not  satisfactory  evidence  that  the  Apocrypha  were 
inspired,  therefore  there  was  no  fraud  in  excluding  them  from 
the  canon.  What  now  is  the  conclusion  of  this  resistless  logic? 
What  end  is  answered,  or  what  point  is  gained?  It  follows, 
we  are  told,  for  we  have  to  receive  it  on  authority,  that  my  "  ar- 
gument is  valueless  and  crumbles  under  its  own  irresistible 
weight." 

Unquestionably,  sir,  your  readers  must  admit  your  unrivalled 
ability  in  reasoning,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the  unanimoue  voice  of 
posterity  will  accord  to  your  extraordinary  skill,  a  distinction 
hardly  inferior  to  his  who  concentrated  all  the  powers  of  his  mind 

*  "  With  these  prefatory  obsen'ations,  I  take  up  your  argument  as  simply 
stated  above,  and  meet  it  by  answering,  that  when  the  Jewish  synagogue  did 
not  admit  those  works  into  the  canon,  it  was  because  of  the  want  of  proof  of 
their  inspiration,  and  perhaps  want  of  authority  to  amend  an  already  duly  es- 
tablished  canon,  and  that,  therefore,  tliey  were  not  guilty  of  the  heinous  sin  you 
lay  at  their  door." — Letter  II. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  179 

upon  the  recondite  process  of  extracting  sunbeams  from  cucum- 
bers. You  exhibit  the  tact  of  a  practised  logician  in  evadinop 
the  point  of  my  argument,  and  like  an  artful  pupil,  when  the 
question  proposed  by  the  master  is  too  hard,  you  answer  another. 

You  are  aware,  sir,  that  the  very  existence  of  your  cause  de- 
pends upon  the  truth  of  my  consequent,  and  accordingly  what- 
ever of  reasoning  there  is  in  your  essay,  is  devoted  to  the  proofs 
by  which  my  minor  proposition  was  established.  You  deny,  in 
other  words,  that  Jesus  Christ  or  his  Apostles  ever  treated  the 
Jewish  canon  as  possessed  of  divine  authority,  or  even  referred 
to  it  at  all.  In  refuting  this  extravagant  assertion,  1  must  cor- 
rect a  series  of  errors,  (into  one  of  which  you  were  led  by  Du 
Pin,)  which  tinge  your  whole  performance,  and  which,  when 
once  detected,  leave  in  a  pitiable  plight  nine-tenths  of  your  sec- 
ond epistle.  Your  fundamental  error  consists  in  your  restricted 
application  of  the  term  canon  to  a  mere  catalogue  or  list.  The 
common  metaphorical  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  kanon,  as  I 
have  already  had  occasion  to  remark,  is  a  rule  or  measure.  In 
this  sense  it  is  used  by  the  classical  writers  of  antiquity,  as  well 
as  by  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  The  subordinate  mean- 
ings which  we  find  attached  to  it  in  Suicer  and  Du  Fresne  may 
be  easily  deduced  from  its  original  application  to  a  rule  or 
measure. 

In  the  early  ecclesiastical  writers,  it  is  sometimes  employed, 
as  Eichhorn  properly  observes,  to  designate  simply  a  book^  and 
particularly  a  book  that  served  in  general  for  the  use  of  the 
church.  The  collection  of  hymns  which  was  to  be  sung  on  fes- 
tivals, and  the  list  of  members  who  were  connected  with  the 
church,  received  alike  this  common  appellation.  Again  it  was 
applied  to  the  approved  catalogue  of  books,  that  might  be  read 
in  the  public  assemblies  of  the  faithful,  for  instruction  and  edifi- 
cation ;  and  in  modern  times  it  is  used  to  designate  those  in- 
5/;ircf/ writings  which  constitute  the  rule  of  faith.*  The  Scrip- 
tures, therefore,  are  said  to  be  canonical,  not  because  their  various 
books  are  numbered  in  a  list,  or  digested  into  any  particular 
order,  but  because  they  are  authoritative  standards  of  divine  truth; 

*  Eichhorn's  Eiuleitung,  vol.  i.  cap.  1,§  L'"),  pp.  10'?-3.     The  text  is  almost 
a  literal  translation  of  the  passage. 


180  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THIS 

and  the  whole  collection  of  sacred  writings  is  called  by  pre-emi- 
nence, the  canon,  not  because  it  is  a  collection,  but  because,  in 
embodied  form,  it  presents  the  entire  rule  of  faith*  It  is  inspi- 
ration, therefore,  and  that  alone  which  entitles  a  book  to  be  re- 
garded as  canonical,  because  it  is  inspiration  alone  that  invests 
it  with  authority  to  command  our  faith.  If  there  were  but  one 
inspired  book  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  book  would  be  the 
canon — though  it  would  be  perfectly  absurd  to  talk  of  a  catalogue 
or  list  of  one  book.  Accordingly,  the  distinguished  German 
critic  to  whom  I  have  already  referred  treats  canonical  and  in- 
spired as  synonymous  terms.  The  Jews,  it  is  important  to 
state,  did  not  apply  the  term  canon  to  the  collection  of  their 
sacred  writings.     They  described  the  books  themselves  in  terms 

*  "  The  infinitely  good  God,  having  favored  manliind  with  a  revelation  of 
his  will,  has  thereby  obliged  all  those  who  are  blessed  with  the  knowledge 
thereof,  to  regard  it  as  the  unerring  rule  of  their  faith  and  practice.  Under  this 
character,  the  Prophets,  Apostles,  and  other  writers  of  the  sacred  books,  pub- 
lished and  delivered  them  to  the  world  ;  and  on  this  account  they  were  dignified 
above  all  others  with  the  titles  of  the  canon  and  the  canonical.  The  word  ca- 
non is  originally  Greek,  and  did,  in  that  language,  as  well  as  in  the  Latin  after- 
wards, commonly  denote  that  which  was  a  rule  or  standard,  by  which  other 
things  were  to  be  examined  and  judged.  And  inasmuch  as  the  books  of  in- 
spiration contained  the  most  remarkable  rules,  and  the  most  important  direc- 
tions of  all  others,  the  collection  of  them  in  time  obtained  the  name  of  the 
canon,  and  each  book  was  called  canonical." — Jones'  new  and  full  Method  for 
settling  the  Canon,  &c.  pt.  1,  c.  1,  p.  19,  vol.  i. 

See  also  Lardner's  Supple,  chap.  1,  §  3,  vol.  v.  p.  257  of  Works.  See  also 
Chalmers'  Evidences  of  Christianity,  Book  iv.  chap.  1.  Owen  on  Hebrews,  Ex- 
ercit.  i.  §  2.  That  the  definition  which  has  been  given  in  the  text  is  abundantly 
confirmed  by  approved  Papal  authorities,  the  following  extracts  will  place  be- 
yond question.  Ferus  says — Scriptura  dicitur  canonica,  id  est,  regularis,  quia 
a  Deo  nobis  data  vitae  et  veritatis  regula,  qua  omnia  probamus  et  juxta  quam 
vivamus.  Jacobus  Andradius  says — Minime  sibi  displicere  eorum  sententiam, 
qui  canonicos  ideo  appellari  dicunt  (Scripturse)  libros  quia  pietatis  et  fidei  et  re- 
ligionis  canonem,  hoc  est,  regulam  atque  normam  e  ccelis  summo  Dei  beneficio 
ad  nos  delatam  continent  amplissimam.  Nam  cum  omnipotentis  Dei  incorrup- 
tissima  et  integerrima  voluntas  humanarum  esse  debeat  actionum  et  voluntatum 
norma  :  merito  sana  a  canone  et  regula  nomen  accipere  ii  codices  debuere,  qui- 
bus  Divina  mysteria  atque  voluntas  comppehensa.  And  Bellarmin,  whom  Ray- 
nold  styles  the  Prince  of  Jesuits,  affirms — Remnitium  recte  deduxisse  ex  Augus- 
tino,  libros  sacros  Scripturee  ideo  dictos  canonicos,  quod  sint  instar  regulae. 
These  extracts  maybe  found  in  Raynol.  Censura.  vol.  i.  p.  61. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    ^ND    REFUTED.  181 

expressive   of  their  divine  origin — arranged  them  in  convenient 
general   divisions,   but  did  not  confine  themselves  to   any   one 
specific    enumeration.     The  books  were  computed   indiscrimi- 
nately so  as  to  suit  the  number  of  letters  either  in  the  Hebrew  or 
Greek  alphabets.     The  Jews  knew  nothing  of  the  magic  of  a 
list.     Philo  and  Josephus,  for  instance,  never  speak  of  the  canon 
— but  of  the  **  compositions  of  their  prophets" — their   "sacred 
books" — *'  the  oracles  of  God,"  using  such  terms  as  denoted  in- 
spiration.    This  was  the  only  canonical  authority  of  which  they 
dreamed.     This  it   was  that  distinguished  their  books  from  the 
works  of  ihe  Gentiles,  and  exalted   their  faith  above  the  deduc- 
tions of  a  fallible  philosophy.     If,  then,  canonical  and  inspired, 
as  applied  to  the   Scriptures,  are   synonymous   terms,  to  insert 
a  book  in  the  canon,  is  simply  to  he  convinced  of  its  divine  inspi- 
ration.    The  very  evidence  which  proves  it  to  come   from  God, 
makes  it   canonical.     In  other  words,  the  proofs  of  inspiration 
and  the  proofs  of  canonical  authority  are  r)«c  and  the  saine  thing. 
Hence  instead  of  requiring  some  great  and   imposing  assembly, 
like  the  cheneseth  hagadolah  of  the  Jews,  or  your  own  favorite 
Council  of  Trent,  to  settle  the   canon  of  Scripture,  it  is  a  work 
which  every  one  must  achieve  for  himself.     The  external  proofs 
of  inspiration,  which  consist  in  the  signs   of  an   apostle    or  a 
prophet,  found  either  in  the  writer   himself,  or   some  one  com- 
missioned to   vouch  for  his  production,  are  as  easy  and   obvious 
as  the  external  proof  that  any   body  of  men  are   supernaturally 
guarded  from  error.* 

The  contemporaries  of  Moses  would  know,  from  the  miracu- 
lous credentials  by  which  his  commission  was  sustained,  that  his 
compositions  were  the  supernatural  dictates  of  God.  They 
would  consequently  be  a  canon  to  his  countrymen.  As  other 
prophets  successively  arose,  their  instructions,  supported  by  simi- 

*  "  The  inspiration  of  a  writer,"  says  Jahn,  "  can  only  be  proved  by  Divine 
testimony.  Nevertheless  nothing  more  can  be  required  than  that  a  man  who 
has  proved  his  Divine  miracles  or  prophecies  should  assert  that  the  book  or 
books  in  question  are  free  from  error."  Introduct.  O.  T.  cap.  2,  p.  3.5,  Turner's 
Translation. 

The  reader  will  find  this  subject  very  clearly  presented  in  Sermon  xxiii.  of 
Van  MUdert's  Boyle  Lectures. 


182  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

lar  credentials,  would  receive  a  similar  distinction.  The  canon 
in  this  way  would  be  gradually  enlarged.  Writers  might  be 
found  who  gave  no  external  proofs  themselves  that  they  wrote  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  yet  their  writings  might 
be  authenticated  by  those  who  were  unquestionably  possessed  of 
the  prophetic  spirit,  and  on  this  account  these  compositions 
would  also  be  added  to  the  existing  canon.  We  read  in  the 
Scriptures  that  "  all  Israel,  from  Dan  even  to  Beersheba,  knew 
that  Samuel  was  established  to  be  a  prophet  of  the  Lord."  (1 
Sam.  iv.  20.)  How  did  they  know  it?  There,  was  no  great 
synagogue  to  publish  the  fact  or  authenticate  its  truth.  There 
was  no  great  council  to  settle  the  matter  by  an  infallible  canon 
— but  there  was  something  better  and  higher  :  "  The  Lord  was 
with  him,"  and  attested  by  miracles  the  supernatural  character 
of  his  servant.  Now  precisely  in  the  same  way  could  the  claims 
of  every  other  prophet  be  established  ;  and  the  evidences  of  divine 
inspiration  be  speedily  and  extensively  diffused.  The  sacred 
books,  circulated  among  the  people,  as  well  as  preserved  in 
the  Library  of  the  Temple*  by  the  Priests,  would  have  every 
moral  protection  from  corruption,  forgery,  or  frauds.  The  inno- 
vations of  the  Priests  would  be  speedily  detected  by  the  people, 
and  the  changes  of  the  people  just  as  readily  exposed  by  the 
Priests.  In  the  multitude  of  copies,  as  in  the  multitude  of  coun- 
sellors, there  would  be  safety. -\  To  this  must  be  added  the 
sleepless  providence  of  God,  which  would  preserve  his  word, 
which  he  hath  exalted  above  every  other  manifestation  of  his 
name,  amid  all  the  assaults  of  its  enemies,  and  transmit  it  to 
future  generations  unimpaired  by  the  fires  of  persecution,  as  the 
burning  bush  was  protected  from  the  flame.| 

*  The  existence  of  such  a  Temple  Library  will  hardly  be  disputed  by  any 
sober  critic.  Traces  of  it  may  be  found  before  the  captivity  in  Deut.  xxxi.  26, 
Joshua  xxiv.  26,  1  Samuel  x.  25.  After  the  captivity,  the  evidence  is  com- 
plete. Josephus  Antiq.  1.  iii.  c.  i.  §  7  ;  1.  v.  c.  i.  §  17.  De  Bello.  Jud.  l.vii.c. 
5,  §  5.     See  also  Eichhorn  Einleit.  vol.  i.  §.3. 

t  This  subject  is  ably  discussed  by  Abbadie  in  a  short  compass.  See 
Christ.  Relig.  vol.  i.  §.3,  c.  6. 

X  Upon  the  manner  in  which  the  canon  was  gradually  formed,  and  for  a  full 
and  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  doubts  which  existed  in  the  primitive  church 
in  reference  to  some  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  see  Lancaster's  Bamp- 
ton  Lectures. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  183 

It  is  a  favorite  scheme  of  the  papists  to  represent  the  settling 
of  the  Canon  as  a  work  of  gigantic  toil  and  formidable  mystery. 
It  evidently,  however,  reduces  itself  to  a  simple  question  of  fact 
— what  books  were  written  by  men  whose  claims  to  inspiration 
were  either  directly  or  remotely  established  by  miracles?  It  is 
a  question,  therefore,  of  no  more  difficulty  than  the  authenticity 
of  the  sacred  books.  To  illustrate  the  matter  in  the  case  of  the 
l><&\v  Testament.  The  churches  that  received  the  Epistles  from 
Paul  could  have  had  no  doubts  of  their  canonical  authority^  be- 
cause they  kncui  that  the  Apostle  was  supernaturally  inspired  as 
a  teacher  of  the  faith.  He  produced  in  abundance  the  signs  of 
an  apostle.  So  also  the  writings  of  the  other  apostles  would  be 
recognized  by  their  cotemporary  brethren  as  the  Word  of  the 
Lord.  The  books  actually  written  by  the  Apostles,  or  approved 
by  their  sanction,  would  be  known  by  having  witnesses  of  the 
fact.  The  historical  proofs  of  this  fact,  that  is,  the  testimony  of 
credible  witnesses,  would  be  sufficient,  in  all  future  time,  to  attest 
the  inspiration  of  any  given  work.  If  a  man,  for  example,  in  the 
third  century,  is  doubtful  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  all  that 
is  necessary  to  settle  his  mind  is  to  convince  him  that  Paul  actu- 
ally wrote  it.  This  being  done,  its  inspiration  follows  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  If  a  book,  on  the  other  hand,  which  pretended  to 
be  inspired,  could  produce  no  adequate  proofs  of  apostolic  origin 
or  apostolic  sanction,  its  claims  would  have  to  be  rejected,  unless 
its  author  could  exhibit,  in  his  own  person,  the  signs  of  a  heavenly 
messenger.  The  congregations  in  possession  of  inspired  records 
were  accustomed,  as  we  gather  from  the  apostles  themselves,  to 
transmit  their  treasures  to  the  rest  of  their  brethren,  so  that,  in 
process  of  time,  this  free  circulation  of  the  sacred  books  would 
put  them  in  the  hands  of  all  the  portions  of  the  church :  and  as 
each  church  became  satisfied  of  their  apostolic  origin,  it  received 
them  likewise  as  canonical  and  divine,  and,  in  this  way,  a  com- 
mon canon  was  gradually  settled.  The  idea  that  a  council,  or 
any  mere  ecclesiastical  body,  could  settle  the  canon,  is  perfectly 
preposterous.  To  settle  the  canon,  is  to  settle  the  inspiration  of 
the  sacred  books — to  settle  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  books 
is  to  prove  that  they  were  written  by  divine  prophets — and  to 
prove  this  fact,  is  to  prove  either   that  the  prophets  themselves 


lJ^4  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

established  their  pretensions  by  miraculous  achievements,  or  were 
sanctioned  by  those  who  were  already  in  possession  of  supernat- 
ural credentials.  Now  what  can  a  council  do  in  a  matter  ofthis 
sort,  but  give  the  testimony  of  the  men  who  compose  it?  Its 
authority  as  a  council  is  nothing — it  may  be  entitled  to  defer- 
erence  and  respect  as  embodying  the  testimony  of  credible  wit- 
nesses. Every  thing,  however,  will  depend  upon  the  honesty, 
accuracy,  fidelity,  and  opportunities  of  the  individual  members 
who  constitute  the  Synod. 

Having  now  shown  what  a  canon  is,  how  a  book  is  deter- 
mined to  be  canonical,  and  how  the  canon  was  gradually  col- 
lected, little  need  be  said  in  refutation  of  your  extravagant  ac- 
count of  the  origin  and  settlement  of  the  canon  of  the  Jews. 

1  could  have  predicted  beforehand,  from  your  known  parti- 
ality for  Synods  and  Councils,  that  you  would  have  found  in  the 
great  synagogue  of  Ezra,  an  adequate  tribunal  for  adjusting  the 
rule  of  faith.  You  would  never,  at  least,  have  rested  in  your  in- 
quiries, until  you  had  met  with  some  body  of  men  in  whose  deci- 
sion your  papal  proclivity  to  confide  in  the  authority  of  man, 
might  be  humored  or  indulged.  As  to  the  wolf  in  the  fable,  no 
possible  combination  of  letters  could  be  made  to  spell  any  thing 
but  agnus,  so  your  inherent  love  for  a  Council  would  lead  you  to 
embrace  any  floating  tradition  by  which  you  could  construct  a 
plausible  story,  that  such  a  tribunal  had  settled  the  canon  of  the 
Jews.  Mlt,  sir,  where  is  the  proof  that  this  great  synagogue  ever 
existed  ?  The  first  notice  which  we  have  of  it,  is  contained  in  the 
Talmud,  a  book  which  began  about^z?e  hundred  years  after  this 
synagogue  is  said  to  have  perished.  You  are  more  modest,  how- 
ever, than  some  of  your  predecessors.  Genebrard,  not  content, 
like  yourself,  with  a  single  Council,  has  fabricated  tico  other 
Synods  to  complete  the  work  which  Ezra  had  begun.*  By  one 
of  these  imaginary  bodies  the  books  of  Tobias  and  Ecclesias- 
ticus  were  added  to  the  canon,  and  by  the  other,  the  remaining 
works  of  the  Apocrypha.  The  great  synagogue,  which  you  have 
endorsed,  was  a  regular  ecclesiastical  body,  in  which  might  be  dis- 
cerned, to  use  your  own  words,  "  a  general  council  of  the  church, 

*  Hottinger,  Thesaur.  Phil.  lib.  i.  c.  i.  quest.  1,  p.  110. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  185 

in  the  old  law,  claiming  and  exercising  by  the  authority  of  God 
the  power  of  teaching  the  faithful  what  were  the  inspired  books." 
Beyond  the  traditions  of  the  Rabbins,  what  evidence  are  you  able 
to  produce,  that  a  body,  so  evidently  extraordinary  as  this  is  re- 
ported to  have  been,  is  any  thing  more  than  r  fiction  ?  You  are 
probably  aware,  sir,  that  Jahn  pronounces  the  story  to  be  a  fable, 
in  which  he  is  confirmed  by  what  in  a  question  of  literary  criti- 
cism is  still  higher  authority,  the  opinion  of  Eichhorn.*  We  are 
not  wanting  in  Jewish  writers  from  the  period  of  Ezra,  to  the 
advent  of  Christ,  and  the  compilation  of  the  Talmud,  and  it  is 
certainly  astonishing,  if  the  synagogue  had  been  a  historical 
entity  of  so  much  importance  as  the  traditions  of  the  Rabbins 
ascribe  to  it,  that  some  authentic  notice  has  not  been  taken  of 
its  history,  organization,  and  proceedings.  How,  sir,  will  you 
explain  this  wonderful  phenomenon?  Then,  again,  the  one  hun- 
dren  and  twenty  men  who  composed  this  assembly,  are  said  all 
to  have  flourished  at  the  same  time,  and  so  Daniel  and  Simon 
the  Just  are  made  cotemporaries,  although  there  could  have  been, 
according  to  Prideaux,  little  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
between  them.  The  whole  story  is  so  ridiculous  and  absurd  as 
to  carry  the  stamp  of  falsehood  upon  its  face.  It  no  doubt  arose 
from  the  fact  that  Ezra  was  assisted  in  restoring  the  constitution 
of  the  Jewish  state,  and  publishing  a  correct  editionof  the  Scrip- 
lures,  {of  the  canon  as  already  existing,)  by  the  "  principal 
elders,  who  lived  in  a  continual  succession  from  the  first  return 

*  The  Jews  attribute  the  establishment  of  their  canon,  to  what  they  call 
the  Great  Synagogue,  which  during  more  than  two  hundred  years,  from  Zenib- 
babel  down  to  Simon  the  Just,  was  composed  of  the  prophets  and  most  eminent 
men  of  the  nation.  But  the  whole  story  respecting  this  synagogue,  which  first 
occurs  in  the  Talmud,  is  utterly  unworthy  of  credit.  It  is  evidently  a  fictitious 
representation  of  the  historic  truth,  that  the  men  who  are  said  to  have  consti- 
tuted the  synagogue,  were  chiefly  instrumental  in  the  new  regulation  of  the 
state, and  in  the  constitution  of  the  Jewish  church,  and  consequently,  in  the  col- 
lecting and  fixing  the  holy  books  upon  which  this  constitution  was  established." 
— Jahns  Introd.,  Turner  s  Trans,  p.  45. 

See  also  Eichhorn's  Einleit.  vol.  i.  §  5.  An  account  of  this  great  synagogue 
may  be  found  in  Bartolocci  Bibliotheca  Rabbinica,  vol.  iv.  p.  2,  on  the  word 
"  Chene.seth  Ilasiadolah."  Buxtorf  Tiberias,  c.  .\.  xi.  Leusden,  Philol.  Heb. 
Dissert,  ix.  6  4.  jv  7.1. 

9* 


186  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

of  the  Jew?  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  to  the  death  of  Simon 
the  Just."*  That  Ezra  could  not  have  settled  the  canon  of 
Scripture,  is  clear  from  the  fact,  that  most  of  the  books  already 
existed,  and  were  hioivn  to  be  the  compositions  of  prophets. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  he  furnished  additional  proof  of  the 
inspiration  of  Moses,  David,  or  Isaiah,  and  yet  this  he  must  have 
done  if  he  made  them  canonical. t  The  truth  is,  he  did  nothing 
more  in  reference  to  existing  books  than  discharge  the  duties  of 
a  critical  editor.  His  labors  were  precisely  of  the  same  kind  as 
those  of  Griesbach,  Knapp,  and  Mill.  He  might  have  been 
guided  by  inspiration  in  executing  these  functions,  for  he  was 
confessedly  an  inspired  man,  but  the  ancient  books  which  he 
published  were  just  as  canonical  before  he  was  born,  as  they  were 
after  he  was  dead. 

"  What  authority,"  you  state  wMth  ineffable  simplicity,  "they 
(the  Jews)  thought  necessary  and  sufficient  to  amend  the  canon, 
I  have  never  met  laid  down  by  any  of  them.  Nor  do  they  treat 
of  the  evidence  sufficient  to  establish  the  inspiration  of  a  book." 
The  authority,  it  is  plain,  is  the  evidence  of  inspiration,  and  that, 
in  its  external  division,  is  the  exhibition  of  miraculous  creden- 
tials. Whoever  claimed  to  be  inspired,  and  sustained  his  pre- 
tensions by  signs  and  wonders,  which  none  could  do  unless  God 
were  with  him,  was  in  fact  inspired,  and  whatever  he  wrote 
under  the  influence  of  inspiration,  belonged  of  necessity  to  the 
canon. t 


*  In  addition  to  the  authority  of  Jahn,  see  also  Prideaux,  vol.  i.  p.  S.'SO. 
Knapp's  Lectures,  vol.  i.  art.  i.  §4,  p.  81. 

t  "  But  the  great  work  of  Ezra,  was  his  collecting  together  and  setting  forth 
a  correct  edition  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  he  lahored  much  in,  and  went  a 
great  way  in  the  perfecting  of  it.  This  hoth  Christians  and  .Tews  give  him  the 
honor  of,  and  many  of  the  ancient  Fathers  attribute  more  to  him,  in  this  parti- 
cular, than  the  Jews  themselves.  For  they  hold  that  all  the  Scriptures  were 
lost  and  destroyed  in  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  that  Ezra  restored  them  all 
again  by  Divine  inspiration.  Thus  saith  Irenseus,  and  thus  say  Tertullian, 
Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Basil,  and  others.  But  they  had  no  other  foundation 
for  it,  than  that  fabulous  relation  which  we  have  of  it  in  the  14th  chapter  of  the 
second  Apocryphal  book  of  Esdras,  a  book  too  absurd  for  the  Romanists  them- 
selves to  receive  into  their  canon." — Frideaux, vol.  i.  p.  .368. 

i  "  In  the   race  of  a  person,  claiming  to  he  commissioned  with  a  message 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  187 

Your  distinction,  accordingly,  between  not  inserting  a  book 
reall}'  inspired  in  a  canon,  and  rejecting  it  from  a  canon  through 
defect  of  proof  or  want  of  authority,  is  wholly  gratuitous  and  ab- 
surd. As  the  only  way  in  which  a  book  can  be  inserted  into  the 
canon,  is  to  acknowledge  its  Divine  authority  as  a  rule  of  faith  ; 
that  is,  to  receive  it  as  inspired,  so  the  only  way  of  rejecting  it, 
is  to  deny  or  not  be  convinced  of  its  inspiration.  A  book  can- 
not be  rejected  after  its  inspiration  is  established  ;  we  may  refuse 
to  obey  its  instructions,  but  if  we  knoiv  it  to  be  inspired,  it  must 
be  regarded  as  speaking  with  authority.  Whether  we  liear,  or 
v/hether  we  forbear,  it  still  is  entitled  to  be  considered  as  a  rule. 
Those  that  would  not  submit  to  the  government  of  Christ,  were 
still  treated  and  punished  as  his  subjects.  His  right  of  dominion 
was  not  at  all  impaired  by  their  disobedience. 

You  are  quite  mistaken,  therefore,  in  supposing  that  the 
charge  of  rejecting  the  Apocrypha  from  the  canon  cannot  be 
sustained    against  the  Jews,  unless  they  had   proof  that  these 

from  God,  the  only  proof  which  ought,  to  be  admitted  is  miraculous  attestation 
of  some  sort.  It  should  be  required  that  either  the  person  himself  should  work 
a  miracle,  or  that  a  miracle  should  be  so  wrought  in  connection  with  his  minis- 
try, as  to  remove  all  doubt  of  its  reference  to  him  and  his  message.  The  mir- 
acle, in  these  cases,  is,  in  fact,  a  specimen  of  that  violation  of  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature  which  the  person  inspired  is  asserting  to  have  taken  place  in 
his  appointment  and  miiiisuy  ;  and  corresponds  to  the  exhibition  of  specimens 
and  experiments  which  we  should  require  of  a  geologist,  mineralogist,  or  chem- 
ist, if  he  asserted  his  discovery  of  any  natural  phenomena,  especially  of  any  at 
variance  with  received  theories.' — Hinds  on  Inspiration,  pp.  9,  10.  "  The 
Bible  is  said  to  be  inspired  in  no  other  sense  than  the  government  of  the  Is- 
raelites might  be  tenned  inspired — that  is,  the  persons  who  wrote  the  Bible, 
and  those  who  were  appointed  to  govern  God's  people  of  old,  were  divinely 
commissioned  and  miraculously  qualified,  as  far  as  was  needful,  for  their  respec- 
tive employments.  This  being  so,  the  inspiration  of  Scripture  is  not,  by  the 
strict  rule  of  division,  opposed  to  the  inspiration  of  persons, but  forms  one  branch 
of  that  multifarious  ministry  in  which  those  persons  were  engaged.  *  *  *. 
The  proof  requisite  for  establishing  the  divine  authority  of  any  writings,  when, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Bible,  the  testimonial  miracles  of  the  authors  can  be  no 
longer  witnessed,  is  either  1,  That  some  miracle  be  implied  in  the  authorship, 
or  2,  That  there  be  satisfactory  testimony  tiiat  the  writers  were  persons  who 
performed  miracles,  or  3,  That  there  be  satisfactory  testimony  that  the  writings 
were  recognised  as  works  of  inspiration  by  persons  who  must  have  been  assured 
pf  this  on  the  evidence  of  miracles." — Thid.  p.  27.  28. 


188  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

books  were  inspired,  and  possessed  a  tribunal  whose  function  it 
was  to  insert  them  into  the  canon.  They  were  rejected  from  the 
canon,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  if  they  were  not  believed 
to  he  inspired.^' 

*  I  find  that  Raynold  in  his  admirable  work,  Censura  Libromm  Apocry- 
phorum,  has  taken  the  same  view.  In  rebutting  the  very  distinction  of  A.  P.  F. 
which,  in  the  days  of  this  great  scholar,  was  urged  by  Canus  and  Sixtus  Senen- 
sis,  he  thus  proceeds  :  "  Concidit  ergo  alterum  exceptionis  Sixti  membrum : 
nunc  ad  alterum,  quod  ita  habet :  Etsi  non  recepervnt  in  canonem,  tamen 
non  rejecertint;  aliud  enim  vcn  recipere,  alivd  rejicere.  At  idem  plane 
est  ad  id  de  quo  agimus,  non  accipere  et  rejicere.  Nam  mutemus  verba  prions 
ratiocinationis  nostrae,  et  dicamus :  Si  quae  unquam  ecclesia  verum  et  certvm 
testimonium  dare  potuit  de  Lihris  canonicis  Sacrae  Scripturae,  de  Lihris 
certe  Veteris  Testamenti  veins  Ecclesia  Judaica  potuit.  At  ea  hos,  qui  sunt 
in  controversia,  libros  in  canonem  non  recepit.  Ergo  recipiendi  non  sunt. 
Quid  jam  lucratus  est  Canus  ?  Nobis  satis  probasse  non  esse  recipiendo,  quod 
enim  Christus  apud  Matthaeum  dicit,  qui  vos  recipit,  me  recipit,  id  apud 
Lucam  sic  efFertur,  qui  vos  rejicit,  me  rejicit,  et  ahbi  qui  non  colligit  mecum 
spargit :  hie  non  recipi  est  rejici,  ut  in  virtutis  via  regreditur,  quicunque  non 
progreditur^  in  Apocalypsi,  foris  ernnt  canes,  et  venefici,  et  scortatores,  et 
homicidcB,  et  idolatrce,  et  quisquis  amat,  et  committit  mendacium.  Quid  his 
proderit  non  rejici,  si  non  recipiantur  ?  Verum  est  ista  distinctio  adhuc  plenius 
refutetur,  ego  non  modo  hos  receptos,  hos  libros  sed  et  rejectos  fuisse  docebo. 
Quid  est  enim  rejicere,  nisi  negare  esse  canonicos  ?  Quid  non  recipere,  quam 
(ut  levius  in  Cani  gratiam  interpreter)  dubitare  num  sint  recipiendi  1" — Cens. 
Lib.  Ap.  vol.  i.  p.  86.  Praelect  ix. 

"  One  member  of  the  exception  of  Sixtus  has  fallen  ;  noAv  for  the  other, 
which  is  this  ;  '  although  they  (the  Jews)  did  not  receive  these  hooks  into  the 
canon,  they  did  not  reject  them  : — not  to  receive  and  to  reject,  are  different 
things.  They  are  evidently  the  same,  however,  in  the  matter  of  which  we 
are  treating.  For  let  us  change  the  form  of  expressing  our  first  argument,  and 
say  if  any  Church  could  give  a  true  and  certain  testimony  concerning  the 
canonical  books  of  Holy  Scripture,  particularly  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
it  was  the  ancient  Church  of  the  .fews.  But  this  Church  did  not  receive  into 
its  canon  the  disputed  books,  therefore  they  ought  not  to  be  received.  What, 
now,  has  Canus  gained?  It  is  enough,  to  prove  that  \hey  on ght  not  to  be 
received.  Christ,  in  Matthew,  says,  whoso  receiveth  you,  receive  th  me;  the 
same  idea  is  expressed  in  Luke,  whoso  rejecteth  you,  rejecteth  rne,  and  else- 
where, he  that  gathereth  not  with  me,  scattereth.  In  these  passages,  not  to 
be  received  and  to  be  rejected,  are  the  same  thing,  as  he  who  goes  backward 
in  the  path  of  virtue  does  not  go  forward  ;  and,  as  in  the  Apocalypse,  without 
are  dogs,  and  sorcerers,  and  adulterers,  and  murderers,  and  idolaters,  and  who- 
sopver  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie.     What  will  it  profit  thes"  not  to  he  rejected  if 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  189 

All  your  blunders  upon  this  subject  have  arisen  from  the  am- 
biguity of  the  word  canon,  and  from  the  preposterous  idea,  that 
there  is  something  peculiarly  mysterious  and  profound  in  making 
a  collection  of  sacred  works.  It  seems  never  to  have  entered 
your  head  that  there  is  nothing  more  wonderful  or  abstruse  in 
gathering  together  the  accredited  writings  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
than  in  making  a  collection  of  the  acknowledged  publications  of 
a  human  author.  The  difficulty  of  the  subject  is  not  in  the  col- 
lection, but  in  the  ^roof  that  the  separate  pieces,  in  either  case, 
are  genuine.  Inspiration  is  the  mark  of  a  genuine  work  of  the 
Spirit,  and  miracles  are  the  infallible  marks  of  inspiration. 

These  preliminary  suggestions  in  reference  to  the  nature  and 
authority  of  the  canon,  furnish  the  keys  to  a  satisfactory  solution 
of  all  your  difficulties.  Your  refutation  of  the  minor  proposi- 
tions of  my  argument,  will  be  found  so  essentially  wanting  in 
every  element  of  strength,  that  it  may  safely  be  pronounced  as 
worthless  as  you  have  represented  my  own  to  be,  and  will  assur- 
edly "  crumble  under  its  own  irresistible  weight." 


LETTER   XII. 


Our  Saviour  approvod  the  Jewish  canon  and  treated  it  as  complete,  Saddiicees  vindicated 
from  the  charge  of  rejecting  all  the  Old  Testament  but  the  Pentateuch.  The  real  point 
which  Papists  must  prove,  in  order  to  establish  the  inspiration    f  the  Apocrypha. 

That  the  Jewish  canon  was  not  defective,  was  made  to  ap- 
pear from  the  silence  of  Christ,  in  reference  to  any  omission 
impairing  its  integrity ;  from  His  recorded  conversations,  in 
which  he  evidently  sanctioned  it  as  complete;  and  from  the  in- 
structions of  His  apostles,  who  spake  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

they  are  not  received  ?  But  that  this  distinction  may  be  yet  more  fully  re- 
futed, I  will  not  only  show  that  these  books  were  not  received,  but  that  they 
were  positively  rejected.  For  what  is  it  to  reject  but  to  deny  that  they  are 
canonical  ?  And  what  not  to  rereive.  but  to  doubt  whrthf^r  they  should  be 
received  ?" 


190  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Your  reply  to  these  several  distinct  proofs  of  my  minor  pro- 
position, I  shall  now  examine  in  the  order  which  seems  to  me 
to  be  most  convenient  for  fully  presenting  the  subject. 

First,  then,  you  deny  that  our  Saviour,  or  His  apostles,  ever 
referred  to  the  canon  of  the  Jews  at  all,  and,  in  order  to  give 
some  semblance  of  truth  to  this  gross  and  palpable  falsehood, 
you  avail  yourself  of  the  ambiguity  of  a  term,  and  endeavor  to 
"  embosk  in  the  dark,  bushy,  and  tangled  forest"  of  verbal 
technicalities.*  It  is  freely  conceded  that  our  Saviour  nowhere 
enumerates,  by  their  specific  names  or  titles,  all  the  books  which 
compose  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  He  never  pretended,  so  far  as 
it  appears  from  the  sacred  records,  to  give  an  accurate  list  or  for- 
mal catalogue  of  all  the  inspired  writings  which  the  Jews  received 
as  the  infallible  standard  of  supernatural  truth.  But  what  is 
this  to  the  point?  Even  if  we  take  canon  in  your  own  arbitrary 
sense  of  it,  you  have  grossly  failed  to  sustain  your  monstrous  hy- 
pothesis. It  is  certainly  one  thing  to  refer  to  a  canon,  and  quite 
a  different  thing  to  enumerate  all  the  books  which  compose  it. 
Such  general  terms  as  the  Works  of  Homer,  the  Works  of  Plato, 
or  the  Works  of  Cicero,  evidently  embrace  a  complete  collection 
of  their  various  performances  ;  and  to  refer  to  them  under  these 
titles y  is  to  refer  to  the  catalogue  or  list  of  their  literary  labors. 
If  the  question  were  asked,  what  were  the  works  of  Homer, 
could  it  be  answered  in  any  other  way  than  by  enumerating 
the  specific  books  of  which  he  was  supposed  to  be  the  author  ? 

Now  if  the  Jews  applied  any  generjil  and  comprehensive  titles 
to  the  whole  body  of  their  sacred  writings,  and  if  our  Saviour 
refered  to  these  documents,  under  those  titles,  he  referred,  un- 
questionably, to  the  catalogue  or  list  of  their  divine  composi- 
tions, that  is,  in  your  own  sense,  he  referred  unquestionably  to  the 

*  "  You  have  entirely  forgotten  or  omitted  to  allege,  or  even  by  note  to 
refer  to  a  single  passage  of  the  New  Testament,  wherein  the  Saviour  or  the 
Apostles  gpeak  at  all  of  the  canon  of  the  Jews.  They  refer  to  the  Scriptures 
generally,  and  to  particular  books,  they  quote  from  them,  but  there  is  not  in 
the  whole  New  Testament  a  single  passage  showing  that  Christ  and  His 
Apostles  ever  referred  to  the  canon  catalogue  or  list  of  inspired  books  held 
among  the  Jews,  much  less  treated  that  catalogue  as  complete  and  containing 
the  whole  of  God's  revelation  as  far  as  then  made. — Letter  II. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  191 

canon  of  his  countrymen.  Have  you  yet  to  learn,  sir,  that  the 
phrases  "  Scriptures,"  "  Holy  Scriptures,"  "  Sacred  Books,"  and 
such  like  expressions,  which  are  continually  occurring  in  Philo 
and  Josephus,  were  the  common  and  familiar  designations  of 
those  works  which  were  believed  to  have  proceeded  from  the 
Spirit  of  God  ?*  Have  you  further  to  learn  that  the  division  of 
their  sacred  books  into  three  parts,  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and 
the  rest  of  the  books,  was  an  ancient  classification  ?t  Certainly, 
sir,  there  is  as  much  evidence  of  these  facts,  as  of  the  existence 
of  an  infallible  "council  of  the  church  in  the  old  law,"  in  the 
days  of  Ezra.  If,  now,  our  Saviour  or  his  apostles  ever  referred 
to  the  inspired  documents  of  the  Jewish  faith,  under  the  general 
and  comprehensive  title  of  the  "  Scriptures,"  or  under  the  three- 
fold division  of  their  books  which  ancient  usage  had  sanctioned, 
he  referred,  beyond  all  question,  to  their  canon,  in  the  sense  of  a 
catalogue  or  list  of  their  divine  compositions.  That  they  did 
refer,  however,  to  the  Scriptures  generally,  you  yourself  admit. 
How,  then,  can  you  deny  the  obvious  conclusion,  without  main- 
taining that  the  general  does  not  include  the  particulars,  the 
whole  is  not  composed  of  its  parts  1  Homer  sometimes  nodded  ; 
and  you,  too,  in  a  moment  of  unlucky  forgetfulness,  have  virtually 
acknowledored  that  there  can  be  a  reference  to  a  canon,  when 
the  name  itself  is  not  mentioned,  and  when  there  is  no  complete 
enumeration  of  the  specific  books  which  constitute  the  list. 
You  have  appealed  to  a  writer,  who,  from  the  passage  quoted, 
would  evidently  appear  to  be  Flavins  Josephus,  though,  in  the 
plenitude  of  papal  authority  and  sacerdotal  learning,  you  have 
reversed  his  name,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  "  what  were  the 
ideas  of  the  Jews,"  on  the  subject  of  their  nationcd  canon. 
What  evidence  have  you,  sir,  that  will  not  as  clearly  apply  to 
the  case  of  Christ   and  his  apostles,  that  Josephus,  in  the  cele- 

*  Hottinger,  Thesaur.  Phil.  lib.  i.  c.  2,  §  3.  Leusden,  Phil.  Heb.  dissert,  i. 
§  1.     Eichhom,  Einleit.  c.  i.  §  6.     Jahn,  Intiod.  Prelim.  Observ.  §  1. 

t  That  this  was  an  ancient  division  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
it  appears  to  have  been  of  long  standing  in  the  time  of  .Tesusthe  t^on  of  Sirach. 
We  find  it  in  his  Prologue.  See  Leusden.  Phil.  Heb.  Dissert,  ii.  §  1.  Hot- 
tinger, Thesaur.  Phil.  lib.  ii.  c.  i.  §  1.  Eichhom,  Einleit.  c.  i.  §  6.  .Tahn,  pt.  i. 
§  10.3. 


192  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

hrated  passage  to  which  you  allude,  refers  to  the  canon,  since 
he  only  mentions  the  general  division  of  the  sacred  books  into 
three  leading  parts,  and  mentions  the  number,  not  the  names  of 
the  works  ihat  belonop  to  each  division  ?*  The  same  divisions 
are  mentioned  by  our  Saviour  (Luke  xxir.  44),  ''AH  things 
must  be  fulfilled  which  are  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the 
Prophets,  and  in  the  Psalms,  concerning  me,"  and  yet  you  deny 
that  in  this  passage  of  Luke,  or  in  any  other  passage  of  the  New 
Testament,  there  is  any  reference  at  all  to  the  canon  of  the  Jews. 
I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  a  reference  to  a  general  classi- 
fication, when  found  in  Josephus,  should  be  a  reference  to  the 
canon,  but  when  found  in  the  mouth  of  our  Saviour,  should  be 
entirely  different.  It  is  vain  to  allege  that  because  Josephus 
mentions  the  number  of  books  in  each  department,  that  this  is 
equivalent  to  the  mention  of  a  canon.  The  number  of  books 
may  be  gathered  from  the  catalogue,  but  it  is  no  more  the  cata- 
logue itself,  than  the  general  heads  under  which  the  list  is 
arranged.  If  I  should  say  that  there  are  twenty  thousand  vol- 
umes in  the  library  of  the  South  Carolina  College,  would  that 
be  the  same  as  a  list  of  the  books?  If  I  should  say  that  the 
books  which  it  contains  might  be  conveniently  arranged  under 
the  four  departments  of  Law,  Divinity,  Philosophy,  and  Belles 
Lettres,  and  that  each  department  contained  five  thousand  vol- 
umes, would  that  be  equivalent  to  a  catalogue  of  the  Library  ? 
It  is  perfectly  plain,  sir,  that  Josephus  no  more  gives  us  a  list  of 
the  sacred   writings  of  the   Jews,  which,  with  you,  is  the  only 

*  This  passage  occurs  in  .Tosephus  contra  Ap.  lib.  i.  §  8.  It  may  be  thus 
rendered  :  "  For  we  have  not  innumerable  books  which  contradict  each  other  ; 
but  only  twenty-two,  which  comprise  the  history  of  all  times  past,  and  are  justly 
held  to  be  divine.  Five  of  these  books  proceed  from  Moses  ;  they  contain 
laws  and  accounts  of  the  origin  of  men,  and  extend  to  his  death.  Accordingly 
they  include  not  much  less  than  a  period  of  three  thousand  years.  From  the 
death  of  Moses  to  the  death  of  Artaxerxes,  who,  after  Xerxes,  reigned  over 
the  Persians,  the  prophets  who  lived  after  Moses,  have  recorded,  in  thirteen 
books,  what  happend  in  their  time.  The  other  four  books  contain  songs  of 
praise  to  God,  and  rules  of  life  for  man. — Since  Artaxerxes  up  to  our  time, 
every  thing  has  been  recorded  ;  but  these  writings  are  not  held  to  be  so  worthy 
of  credit  as  those  written  earli^»r.  because  after  that  time  there  was  no  regular 
succession  of  prophets  !'" 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  193 

way  of  referring  to  their  canon,  than  Christ  and  his  apostles, — 
and  there  is  no  line  of  argument  by  which  you  can  show  that 
he  refers  to  the  canon,  in  the  passage  which  you  have  extracted 
from  his  works,  that  will  not  also  show  that  Christ  himself 
refers  to  it  in  the  passage  recorded  by  Luke.  You  yourself, 
then,  being  judge,  your  broad  and  unqualified  assertions,  that 
"  there  is  not  in  the  whole  New  Testament  a  single  passage, 
showing  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  ever  referred  to  the  canon, 
catlaogue,  or  list  of  inspired  books  held  among  the  Jews,"  is  a 
pure  fabrication  of  the  brain. — Your  imagination  was  evidently 
commencing  that  grand  process  of  unreal  formations,  which 
finally  resulted  in  the  stupendous  creation  of  a  *'  general  council 
of  the  church  in  the  Old  Law,  claiming  and  exercising,  by  the 
authority  of  God,  the  power  of  teaching  the  faithful  what  were 
the  inspired  books."  I  tremble  for  history  when  your  mind  is 
in  travail.  Laboring  mountains  produce  a  mouse,  but  laboring 
priests  bring  {orih  facts  from  the  womb  of  fancy — are  delivered/ 
of  gods  in  the  shape  of  bread,  and  produce  Redeemers  in  the 
form  of  saints. 

If,  upon  your  own  hypothesis,  that  a  canon  and  list  of  inspired 
books  are  synonymous  terms,  your  position  is  grossly  and  palpa- 
bly false,  how  triumphant  becomes  its  refutation  upon  the  true 
view  of  the  case,  that  the  canon  of  the  Jews  wrs  their  anthorita^ 
tive  standard  of  faith !  What  Philo  and  Josephus  denoted  by 
the  terms  "  Scriptures,"  "  Holy  Scriptures,"  "  Sacred  Books," 
*'  Oracles  of  God,"  and  such  like  expressions,  was  precisely  the 
same  thing  which  is  now  denoted  by  the  compendious  appella- 
tion canon.  This  word  was  not,  at  that  time,  in  use  in  reference 
to  the  sacred  books ;  but  in  those  connections  in  which  we  would 
naturally  use  it,  they  always  employed  some  phraseology  which 
indicated  the  divine  authority  of  the  books.  All  books  which 
were  written  by  prophets  or  inspired  men  belonged  to  the  class 
of  Holy  Scriptures,  and  those  which  were  destitute  of  any  satisfac- 
tory claims  to  a  supernatural  origin  were  ranked  in  a  different 
category.  As  then  the  Jews  evidently  meant  by  the  Scriptures  pre- 
cisely what  we  mean  by  the  canon  or  canonical  books,  our  Sa- 
viour's references,  as  also  those  of  his  apostles,  to  the  Jewish 
rule  of  faith  under  this  general  designation,  loere  references  to 


194  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

the  national  canon.  Wherever  the  word  occurs  in  allusion  to 
the  sacred  books,  the  corresponding  term  canon  may  be  safely 
substituted  and  not  the  slightest  change  will  be  made  in  the  mean- 
ino-.  With  these  explanations  I  now  proceed  to  show  that  our 
Saviour  did  quote,  approve,  and  sanction  as  complete,  the  inspired 
rule  of  faith  which  the  Jews  in  his  own  day  professed  to  acknow- 
ledge.* 

1.  First  he  appealed  to  it  under  its  ancient  division  into  three 
general  departments,  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms, 
Luke  xxiv.  44.  This,  according  to  Leusden,  was  the  first  general 
partition  of  the  sacred  books.  What  in  this  category  is  called 
Psalms,  the  first  book  of  a  class  being  put  for  the  whole  class, 
was  subsequently  denominated  Hagiographa — the  phrase  employ- 
ed by  the  Jews  (Ketubim)  being  less  definite  and  precise.  The 
books  of  this  third  division,  as  would  appear  from  the  term  Ketu- 
bim itself,  were  usually  described  by  a  periphrasis,  as  there  was 
no  general  name  which  exactly  comprehended  them  all.  Hence 
in  the  former  Prologue  of  Jesus  the  grandson  of  Sirach,they  are 
simply  mentioned  under  the  vague  title  of  the  "  rest  of  the 
books."  Josephus  also  applies  to  them  a  similar  appellation. 
The  Psalms  being  the  first  in  order  under  the  general  class  of 
Hagiographa,  our  Saviour  in  conformity  with  the  Jewish  method 
of  citation,  mentions  them  as  including  the  rest  of  the  Ketubim. t 
It  appears,  too,  that  Jesus  was  accustomed  to  introduce  repeated 
allusions  to  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  under  a  two-fold  di- 
vision— which  not  unfrequently  occurs  in  the  remains  of  the  Fa- 
thers— the  Law  and  the  Prophets. j:  (Matt.  v.  17,  vii.  12,  xi.  13, 
xxii.  40.   Luke  xvi.  16.) 

Not  only  did  Christ  and    his  apostles  appeal  to  the  canon  of 


*  In  my  original  essay,  I  made  no  special  references  to  show  that  Chiist 
and  his  Apostles  had  quoted  and  approved  the  Jewish  canon,  because  I  never 
dreamed  that  any  human  being  would  think  of  denying  so  plain  a  proposition. 
It  appeared  to  me  Uke  proving  that  the  sun  shines  at  noonday. 

t  The  Psalms  of  our  Saviour's  arrangement  and  the  Hagiographa  of  later 
classifications  are  evidently  the  same.  There  being  no  single  word  by  which 
all  the  books  of  this  class  could  be  denoted,  led,  necessarily,  to  a  periphrastic 
description,  or  to  the  mention  of  a  single  book  as  a  reference  to  the  series. 

t  Suicer  on  the  word  ypafri,  §  7. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  195 

the  Jews  in  a  general  way,  but  they  appealed  to  it  as  possessed 
of  divine  authority.  They  made  a  broad  distinction  between  it 
and  all  the  writings  of  man.  Paul  says  expressly,  in  evident  al- 
lusion to  the  sacred  books  of  his  nation,  "  All  scripture  is  given 
by  inspiration  of  God."     (2  Tim.  iii.  16.) 

Peter  declares  that  "  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the 
will  of  man;  but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost."  Our  Saviour  refers  the  Jews  to  the  Scrip- 
tures which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  reading  as  containing  the 
words  of  everlasting  life,  for  a  satisfactory  defence  of  his  own 
supernatural  commission.  Then,  again,  particular  passages  are 
repeatedly  introduced  as  theipsissima  verba  of  the  Holy  Ghost.* 
These  facts  incontestably  prove  that  the  Jewish  canon  was  sanc- 
tioned by  .Christ,  approved  by  his  apostles,  and  commended  to 
the  church  as  the  lively  oracles  of  God. 

The  estimate  which  Christ  and  his  apostles  put  upon  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  they  uniformly  treat  Christianity  as  only  a  development  of 
Judaism.  It  was  a  new  dispenation  of  ari  old  religion.  Hence, 
in  their  arguments  with  Jews  and  Gentiles,  in  their  instructions 
to  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  they  refer  to  the  Scriptures, 
the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,  for  a  divine  confirmation 
of  all  the  doctrines  which  they  taught.  The  New  Testament  is 
only  an  inspired  exposition  of  the  principles  contained  in  the  Old. 
Every  doctrine  which  Christ  or  his  Apostles  announced  may  be 
found  in  the  existing  canon  of  their  day.  Whatever  changes 
they  made,  or  novelties  they  taught,  respected  the  organization 
and  not  the  essence  of  the  church.  Hence  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians, even  before  a  single  gospel  or  epistle  had  been  indited, 
had  a  written  rule  of  faith.      They  were  never  for  a  moment,  as 

*  The  following  passages  show  the  light  in  which  the  .Tewish  canon  was 
held  by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  I  have  before  me  a  list  of  direct 
quotations  maJe  from  the  Old  Testament  by  the  writers  of  the  New,  amounting 
to  about  272.     Yet  there  is  no  reference  to  the  Jewish  canon  I 

Matt.  xi.  13,  XV.  3-6,  xix.  2-6,  xxii.  31-43, xxvi.  54.  Luke  xvi.  16,29,31, 
xviii.  31,  xxiv.  25-27,44-46.  Mark  vii.  9,  13.  John  v.  39.46, -k.  34.  Acts 
iii.  18,  xxviii.  25.  Rom.  i.  2,  iv.  2-24.  Gal.  iii.  8,  16.  Pleb.  iii.  7,  xii.  27. 
1  Pet.  i.  11.     2Pet.i.  21. 


196  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

the  papists  pretend,  left  to  oral  tradition  for  the  doctrines  of  their 
creed. 

But  the  Jewish  canon  was  also  held  to  he  complete.  In  the 
original  essay  this  point  was  presented  as  a  legitimate  and  obvi- 
ous inference  from  the  silence  of  the  Saviour  in  reference  to  any 
defects  in  the  sacred  library  of  his  countrymen.  Now  the 
strength  of  this  argument  must  depend  on  the  strength  of  the 
presumption,  that,  if  such  defects  in  reality  existed,  the  Messiah 
would  have  felt  himself  bound  to  correct  and  remove  them.  Ac- 
cording to  the  hypothesis  of  Rome  one  fifth  of  the  revelation  of 
God  was  deprived  of  that  6^?««/ veneration  and  authority  to  which 
it  was  justly  entitled  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms. 
Now  the  question  is,  whether  that  great  Prophet  of  the  church, 
**  who  was  clad  with  zeal  as  a  cloak  " — who  came  tP  magnify 
"the  Law  and  make  it  honorable,"  and  who  expressly  declared 
that  he  had  "  not  refrained  his  lips  "  from  speaking  righteous- 
ness in  the  great  congregation,  nor  concealed  from  it  the  truth 
and  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord  ;  the  question  is  whether  such  a 
prophet  would  suffer  so  large  a  part  of  the  light  of  revelation  to 
be  extinguished  without  uttering  a  single  word  in  its  defence. 
Upwards  of  fourteen  hundred  years  before  he  was  born,  his  Fa- 
ther-had distinctly  announced,  "  I  will  put  my  words  in  his  mouth, 
and  lie  shall  speak  unto  them  all  that  I  shall  command  him."  He 
came  then,  not  only  as  a  Priest  and  King,  but  also  as  a  teacher — 
a  teacher  of  God's  truth — and  yet  permitted  a  body  of  that  truth 
almost  equal  in  bulk  to  the  whole  New  Testament  to  be  "  buried 
in  the  dust  of  death."  If  he  raised  no  warning  voice,  no  cry  of 
expostulation — if  he  stood  silent  by  when  such  violence  was  done 
to  the  sacred  records  of  the  faith,  how  could  he  say,  "  Thy  law  is 
within  my  heart,  lo,  I  have  not  refrained  my  lips,  Oh  Lord,  thou 
knowest  "?  The  Jews  had  excluded  the  Apocrypha,  either  wil- 
fully or  ignorantly — if  wilfully,  tiiey  were  guilty  of  a  fraud,  and 
that  fraud  ought  to  have  been  rebuked — if  ignorantly,  they  were 
involved  in  a  great  calamity,  and  their  illustrious  prophet  would 
not  have  left  them  in  their  darkness  and  error.  So  that  upon  every 
view  of  the  subject  the  silence  of  Christ  is  wholly  unaccountable, 
if  these  books  were  really  inspired.  It  becomes  simple  and  nat- 
ural upon  the  supposition  that  they  were  merely  human  produc- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  197 

tions.    He  would  have,  in  thai  case,  no  more  occasion  to  mention 
them  than  to  mention  the  writings  of  the  Greek  philosophers. 

Now,  sir,  what  is  your  answer  to  this  plain  argument  from 
the  silence  of  Christ?  Why,  you  tell  us,  in  your  third  distinc- 
tion, that  it  is  not  so  perfectly  certain  that  Christ  observed  any 
such  silence  as  I  have  attributed  to  him.  You  inform  us — in 
conformity  with  the  testimony  of  John,  for  that  is  the  ouly  pas- 
sage which  bears  upon  the  point — that  Jesus  did  a  great  many 
things  which  are  not  recorded ;  therefore  he  must  also  have  said 
a  great  many  things  which  have  not  been  preserved.  I  confess 
that  1  do  not  exactly  perceive  the  consequence.  But  let  that 
pass.  Let  us  admit  that  he  may  have  laid  as  well  as  done  a 
great  many  things  which  have  never  been  written,  is  it  likely 
that  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists  would  have  omitted  what  their 
master  had  taught  in  reference  to  a  subject  so  vastly  important  as 
the  very  constitution  of  his  church?  No  history  perhaps  records 
all  the  sayings  and  doings  of  the  continental  congress — but  that 
certainly  would  not  deserve  the  name  of  a  history  that  should 
neglect  to  make  the  most  distant  reference  to  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  ?  Whatever  other  things  the  sacred  writers  have 
passed  in  silence  and  neglect,  we  may  feel  perfectly  certain  that 
they  have  not  concealed  or  suppressed  the  instructions  of  their 
master  in  regard  to  so  fundamental  a  matter  as  the  rule  of  faith. 
The  very  same  arguments  that  render  it  improhahle  that  our  Sav- 
iour would  have  failed  to  correct  the  defects  of  the  Jewish  can- 
on, if  any  defects  had  existed,  render  it  also  improbable  that  his 
biographers  would  have  neglected  to  record  the  substance,  at 
least,  of  what  he  had  taught  upon  the  subject.  If  we  grant,  how- 
ever, that  their  silence  is  no  proof  of  their  master's  silence,  you 
have  gained  nothing.  You  have  only  avoided  one  difficulty  by 
plunging  into  another.  You  would  have  the  silence  of  the  Apos- 
tles and  Evangelists  to  explain,  instead  of  the  silence  of  Christ. — 
For  this  and  all  other  difficulties,  however,  you  have  a  stereo- 
typed solution  at  hand.  What  Christ  did  not  choose  to  do  in  per- 
son upon  earth,  and  what  his  apostles  failed  to  perform,  however 
clearly  within  the  compass  of  their  sacred  commission,  may  yet 
be  accomplished  by  a  standing  tribunal — a  general  council  of  the 
church,  like  the  fictitious   synagogue  of  Ezra,   "  claiming  and 


198  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

exercising,  by  the  authority  of  God,  the  power^of  teaching  the 
faithful  what  were  the  inspired  works."  But  as  every  falsehood 
accumulates  additions  in  its  progress — vires  acquirit  eundo — so 
your  infallible  body  possesses  some  larger  powers  in  your  second 
letter  than  it  was  represented  to  possess  in  your  first.  You  have 
brouo-ht  it  so  often  before  the  public,  and  exposed  it  to  view  in 
such  tattered  apparel,  that  it  has  finally  lost  its  modesty,  and  be- 
gins to  speak  more  "swelling  words  of  vanity  "  than  it  dared  to 
utter  at  its  first  appearance.  In  your  first  letter,  councils  could 
do  no  more,  on  the  head  of  doctrine,  than  merely  declare  and 
define  what  had  always  been  the  faith  of  the  church.  They  pos- 
sessed no  power  to  make  neio  articles  of  faith,  they  could  only  an- 
nounce with  infallible  certainty  what  had  always  been  the  old. 
In  your  second  letter,  these  councils  rise  a  step  higher,  and  be- 
come prophets  themselves,  intrusted  with  neiv  revelations  which 
neither  Christ  nor  his  Apostles  had  ever  communicated  to  the 
church.  It  seems  that  it  is  a  matter  of  no  sort  of  consequence 
whether  Christ  or  his  Apostles  in  their  own  persons  had  ever  tes- 
tified to  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha — that  is,  had  ever 
taught  that  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired — an  infallible  council 
could  subsequently  teach  it  for  them.  How?  If  Christ  and  his 
Apostles  had  never  taught  it,  the  members  of  the  council  could 
not  receive  it  from  tradition — they  must  therefore  ascertain  the 
fact  by  immediate  revelation*  What  your  councils  will  become 
next,  it  is  impossible  to  augur — they  already  claim  to  be  the 
voice  of  the  Lord — they  will  perhaps  aspire  to  be  God  himself. 
I  shall  add  nothing  here  to  what  I  have  already  said  touching 
your  pretensions  to  infallibility.  My  previous  numbers  are  a  full 
refutation  of  this  stupendous  folly. 

You  are  extremely  unfortunate   in  your   attempt   to   refute 
from  analogy  my  obvious  inference  from  the  silence  of  the  Sa- 

*  "  Suppose  those  works  inspired,  as  I  contend  they  are,  but  not  admitted 
at  the  Saviour's  time  into  the  Jewish  canon,  it  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  neces- 
sary that  either  Christ  or  his  apostles  should  testify  personally  to  their  inspira- 
tion. If  the  Saviour  established  a  body  of  men,  who,  by  his  authority,  and 
under  the  guidance  of  his  Holy  Spirit  of  truth,  were  to  decide  that  question, 
which,  as  I  showed  in  Letter  I,  we  are  necessarily  bound  to  admit,  the  decision 
of  such  a  body  at  any  subsequent  period  would  be  amply  sufficient." — Letter  11. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED  J99 

viour.  You  appeal  to  the  case  of  the  Sadducees  and  Samaritans, 
who,  according  to  you,  denied  all  the  books  of  the  Jewish  canon, 
but  the  five  books  of  Moses,  and  yet  were  not  rebuked  by  the 
Saviour  for  their  wicked  infidelity. 

Now,  sir,  that  the  Sadducees  denied  the  divine  authority  of 
the  prophets  and  Ketubini,  I  think  it  will  be  difficult  for  you  or 
any  other  man  to  prove.  It  has  been  supposed  that  because  our 
Saviour  refutes  their  skeptical  opinions  in  regard  to  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead,  by  a  passage  extracted  from  the  Pentateuch, 
therefore  they  denied  the  inspiration  of  any  other  books.  But  it 
will  be  seen,  by  inspecting  the  context,  that  they  had  drawn 
their  cavils  from  a  distinctive  provision  of  the  Jewish  law.  They 
had  virtually  asserted  that  the  Pentateuch  denied  the  resurrec- 
tion, since,  in  a  given  case,  its  peculiar  requisitions,  according 
to  their  view,  would  introduce  confusion  and  discord  into  the 
future  state.  Their  difficulties  were  met,  by  correcting  their 
misapprehensions  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  future  life,  and 
by  distinctly  showing  that  Moses  had  taught  the  doctrine  which 
they  supposed  he  had  condemned.  Among  the  fathers,  Origen, 
Tertuilian,  Jerome,  and  Athanasius,  have  endorsed  this  calumny 
upon  the  faith  of  the  Sadducees.  It  was  first  called  in  question 
by  Drusius,  and  subsequently  refuted  with  such  triumphant  suc- 
cess by  Joseph  Scaliger,  that  Bishop  Bull  pronounces  his  argu- 
ment to  be  decisive  of  the  question.  That  -must  be  a  bad  cause, 
in  a  matter  of  literary  criticism,  which  such  men  as  Scaliger, 
Spanhfim,  Pearson,  Bull,  Jortin,  Waterland,  and  Eichhorn,  to 
say  nothing  of  Brucker,  Buddaeus,  and  Basnage,  unite  to  con- 
demn ;  and  yet  all  these  men  are  found  arrayed  against  the  pa- 
tristic opinion,  that  the  Sadducees  rejected  the  Prophets  and  the 
Psalms.* 

It  is  universally  acknowledged  that  the  Samaritans  denied 
the  divine  authority  of  the  whole  Jewish  canon,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Pentateuch,  but  it  is  not  so  clear  that  the  Saviour 
failed  to  rebuke  them.  You  are  probably  aware,  sir,  that  distin- 
guished commentators,  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  have 


*  Brui^ker,  vol.  ii.  p.  721 .    Pearson,  Vindieat.  Tgnal.  pt.  1  ,c.  7,  p.  4G7.    Bull, 
Harm.  Apost,  Diss.  Post.  10,  14. 


200  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

regarded  John  iv.  22,  as  a  pointed  reproof  of  Samaritan  infidel- 
ity ;  and  it  was  incumbent  upon  you  to  prove  that  this  common 
interpretation  was  erroneous  before  you  could  confidently  as- 
sume, that  the  whole  matter  was  permitted  to  pass  sub  silentio 
by  Christ.*  Again,  it  was  hardly  necessary  to  rebuke  the  Sa- 
maritans, as  our  Saviour's  notorious  concurrence  in  the  faith  of 
the  Jews  was  an  open,  public,  and  sufficient  condemnation  of  the 
errors  and  defects  of  this  remarkable  people. 

The  inconsistency  of  the  various  solutions  which  you  have 
suggested  to  the  palpable  difficulty  arising  from  the  silence  of 
Christ,  affords  an  amusing  illustration  of  human  imbecility  and 
folly.  First,  it  was  not  so  absolutely  certain  that  Christ  was 
silent,  since  he  performed  many  signs  and  wonders,  which  have 
never  been  committed  to  written  records.  Then,  again,  he 
could  afford  to  be  silent,  as  he  had  established  an  infallible  tri- 
bunal, abundantly  competent  to  supply  all  his  deficiencies,  and 
teach  the  faithful  to  the  end  of  time.  In  an  analogous  case,  that 
of  the  Sadducees  and  Samaritans,  he  probably  was  silent^  as 
there  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  he  rebuked  the  former  for  a 
sin  which  they  never  committed,  and  very  strong  evidence  that 
he  reproved  the  latter  for  an  omission  of  which  they  were  un- 
doubtedly guilty.  So  you  seem  to  oscillate  between  a  denial  and 
admission  of  the  silence  of  Christ.  Like  a  man  walking  upon 
ice,  you  tread  with  wary  steps,  lest  your  next  movement  should 
ingulf  you.  Finally,  however,  after  all  your  vibrations,  you 
"  screw  your  courage  to  the  sticking  place,"  and  settle  down  in 
grim  despair  upon  a  probable  solution,  by  which  you  seem  deter- 
mined to  abide.  You  stoutly  deny  that  Christ  was  silent  in  the 
matter,  and  promise  to  prove,  though  papal  promises  are  sel- 
dom redeemed,  "  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  did  take  some 
steps,  not  indeed  to  insert  those  books  in  the  Jewish  canon,  but 
to  give  them  to  the  Christians  as  divinely  inspired  works." 
Apart  from  the  lying  testimony  of  an  infallible  church,  the  only 
proof  which  you  present,  in  your  second  letter,  of  this  miserable 
fiction,  is  drawn  from  the  assumption,  that,  in  the  Ntw  Testa- 

*  Such  is  the  interpretation  put  upon  this  passage  by  Ammonius,  Grotius, 
Lampe,  Tholuck,  and  others.  Thokick's  comment  is  specially  deserving  of 
notice. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  201 

ment,  quotations  are  made  from  the  Apocryphal  writers,  and 
from  the  admitted  fact,  that  these  books  were  early  embodied  in 
the  Septuagiin.  The  first  position  you  have  entirely  failed  to 
substantiate.  There  is  no  proof  whatever,  that  a  single  passage 
from  any  of  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha,  is  introduced  into  the 
documents  ivhich  compose  the  Ncio  Testament.  The  passage, 
Rom.  xi.  34,  which  of  all  others  seems  to  be  most  analoffous  to  a 
corresponding  text  in  the  book  of  Wisdom,  (ix.  31,)  is  confessed 
by  several  of  the  Fathers,  Tertullian,  Basil  and  Ambrose,  as  well 
as  by  modern  authors  of  the  papal  sect,  to  have  been  borrowed 
from  the  canonical  prophet  Isaiah,*  xl.  13.  If,  however,  it  could 
be  proved  that  the  Apocrypha  were  quoted  by  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  this  would  not  establish  their  divine  inspiration,  unless 
it  could  also  be  shown  that  every  book  quoted  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, was,  on  that  account,  inspired.  1  can  conceive  of  no 
other  major  proposition  which  would  answer  the  ends  of  the 
argument.  But  surely,  sir,  you  would  not  hazard  a  statement 
like  this  !  It  is  more  than  Trent  would  dare  to  assert,  that  the 
heathen  poets,  whose  verses  are  found  in  the  epistles  of  Paul 
were  holy  men  of  Greece,  who  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  is  an  old  logical  maxim  that  an  argument  which 
proves  too  much,  proves  in  reality  nothing. 

Your  reasoning  from  the  second  fact  is  easily  set  aside.    You 

proceed  on  the  assumption,  for  which  you  quote  the  authority  of 

*VValton,  that  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  the  Septua- 

gint  contained  the  Apocrypha.!     You  then  infer,  that  "  if  those 


*  See  No.  X.  of  this  series  of  Letters. 

t  I  have  seen  no  reason,  since  writing  my  original  essay,  to  change  the 
opinion  which  I  then  expressed,  that  the  Septuagint,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  did 
not  contain  the  Apocrypha.  If  these  dociuncnts  were  iit  the  hands  of  the  apos- 
tles, why  were  they  never  quoted  ?  How  does  it  happen  that  not  a  single  allu- 
sion is  made  to  them,  nor  a  single  passage  extracted  from  them  ?  But  the  sub- 
ject is  too  unimportant  to  spend  much  time  upon  it.  I  shall  just  observe,  that  I 
am  sustained  in  my  opinion  by  Eichhorn,  as  well  as  Schmidius.  The  passage 
from  Walton  proves  nothing  as  to  the  time  when  the  union  betwixt  the  Septua- 
gint and  Apocrypha  took  place.  A.  P.  F.'s  eulogy  upon  Walton's  competency 
to  settle  a  question  of  this  sort,  is  not  a  little  amusing,  since,  probably,  the  most 
exceptionable  part  of  his  famous  Prolegomena  i.s  in  relation  to  the  origin  of  the 

10 


202  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

books  were  uninspired,  the  Saviour  and  his  apostles  were  cer- 
tainly hound  positiveli/  to  reject  them."  Now,  as  I  have  already 
shown  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  to  insert  a  book  into  the 
canon  is  to  receive  it  as  inspired  ;  to  reject  a  book  is  not  to  be 
persuaded  or  convinced  of  its  divine  inspiration,  or  to  pronounce 
it  uninspired.  As  there  is  no  evidence  that  a  single  man,  woman 
or  child,  in  the  whole  land  of  Judea,  looked  upon  the  Apocrypha 
as  inspired  productions,  what  need  was  there  that  Christ  should 
positively  assert  what  no  one  thought  of  denying?  His  silence 
was  conclusive  proof  that  he  acquiesced  in  the  popular  opinion. 
It  was,  beyond  all  controversy,  the  positive  rejection,  for  which 
you  so  earnestly  plead. 

You  have  admitted  that  the  Jews  had  no  satisfactory  evidence 
that  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired  ;  that  they  were  excluded  from 
the  Jewish  canon,  and,  of  course,  a  complete  separation,  as  to 
authority,  was  made  between  them  and  the  sacred  books  !  Every 
end  was  consequently  answered  which  could  have  been  effected 
by  the  most  pointed  denunciation  of  these  books.  There  was  no 
need  for  Christ  to  speak,  unless  he  intended  to  add  these  works 
to  the  sacred  canon.  Then  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
show  the  Jews  their  error  in  refusing  to  admit  the  divine  author- 
ity of  Tobit,  Judith,  and  Wisdom.  The  truth  is,  you  have  been 
led  into  this  foolish  argument  by  the  ambiguity  of  the  sentence, 
that  the  Septuagint  contcdned  the  Apocrypha.  You  evidently 
treat  the  phrase  as  conveying  the  idea,  that  whatever  books  were 
inserted  in  that  version,  were  possessed  of  equal  authority.  The 
only  meaning,  however,  which  the  words  can  consistently  bear, 
is,  that  wherever  there  were  copies  of  the  Greek  version  of  the 
Old  Testament,  there  were  also  copies  of  the  Greek  documents 
which  we  now  style  the  Apocrypha.  They  usually  went  to- 
gether, and  that,  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  in  regular  series, 
the  rtmarkahle  history  of  God's  chosen  people.  In  this  way  a 
complete  collection  was  made  of  Jewish  literature,  inspired  and 
uninspired.  The  line  was  clearly  drawn  between  the  divine  and 
human ;  but  as  they   both  met  in  the  common  point  of  Jewish 


Septuagint.     He  ought  not  to  be  read  upon  this  point,  without  Ilody  at  hand  to 
correct  his  partiality  for  the  fable  of  Arisfaens. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  203 

history,  they  were  united  together  in  one  collection.  Thus  much 
might  have  been  gathered  from  the  famous  passage  of  Josephus, 
which  was  evidently  before  your  eyes,  **  We  have  not,"  says  he, 
"  innumerable  books  which  contradict  each  other,  but  only 
twenty-two  which  comprise  the  history  of  all  tiroes  past."  *  *  * 
**  Since  Artaxerxes,  up  to  our  time,  every  thing  has  been  re- 
cordcdr  In  the  eyes  of  Josephus,  then,  both  the  canonical  and 
Apocryphal  books  contained  the  history  of  his  nation,  and  there- 
fore, had  a  common  quality,  which  might  serve  as  a  bond  of  union, 
but  the  difference  between  them  lay  in  this:  the  twenty-two 
books  were  ^\justly  held  to  be  divine'' — those  composed  since 
the  time  of  Artaxerxes,  "  ivere  not  so  uwrthy  of  credit,  because, 
after  that  time,  there  was  no  regular  succession  of  prophets''  or 
inspired  writers.  Another  circumstance  which  undoubtedly  con- 
tributed in  no  small  degree  to  the  popularity  of  those  works,  was 
their  singular  adaptation  to  the  religious  spirit  of  the  age.  The 
Jews,  like  the  papists,  had  obscured  the  revelation  of  God,  and 
trusting  in  the  vain  traditions  of  man,  had  mistaken  superstition 
for  piety,  and  sentiment  for  grace  Hence  they  would  be  likely 
to  regard  (particularly  the  Hellenist)  these  Apocryphal  docu- 
ments with  the  same  sort  of  veneration  with  which  we  now  con- 
template the  monuments  of  illustrious  teacliers  of  the  truth. 

It  is,  certainly,  no  commandation  of  these  books,  to  say  that 
they  were  written  with  that  subordinate  degree  of  inspiration, 
which  the  Jews  denominate  the  "  daughter  of  the  voice."*  The 
stories  of  the  Rabbins  concerning  this  singular  method  of  super- 
natural communication,  reveal  a  degree  of  superstition,  and  be- 
tray a  fondness  for  magical  delusion,  which  sutTiciently  illustrate 
the  real  source  of  their  famous  ''hath  gtiol."  in  attributing  to 
the  writings  of  the  Apocrypha  this  peculiar  species  of  inspiration, 
a  suspicion  is  naturally  awakened,  that  much  of  the  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held,  may  be  ultimately  traced  to  their  own  pat- 
ronage of  something  not  very  remote  frou!  tiie  black  art.  A 
strong  inclination  to  credulity  and  magic  wns,  according  to  Light- 
foot,  a  characteristic  of  the  Jews  under  the  second  temple,  and  I 


*   For  an  nrrount  of  tliis  species  of  iiii=piration.  see  Wifsii  Opern.vol.  i.  lib. 
i.  e.  .'}.      liiehtfcot  on  YXv.W.  iii.  17 


204  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

know  of  nothing  better  suited  to   a  humor  of  this  sort,  than  the 
book  of  Tobit,  unless  it  be  the  Arabian  Nights. 

You  seem  to  think  that  if  these  books  were  not  admitted  into 
the  Septuagint  until  after  the  time  of  Christ,  it  must  have  been  done 
with  the  sanction  of  the  apostles,  in  such  a  way  as  to  imply  that  they 
were  divinely  inspired.*  This  would  follow  only  upon  the  hypothe- 
sis, that  when  admitted  they  were  admitted  as  inspired.  If  they  were 
introduced  into  connection  with  the  Septuagint,  simply  as  histor- 
ical works,  covering  an   interesting  period  of  the  Jewish  annals, 
or  as  moral  compositions  pervaded   by  an  elevated  tone  of  reli- 
gious sentiment,  there  would  be  no  more  objection  to   incorpo- 
rating them  with  the  Septuagint,  than  to  placing  them  on  the 
same  shelf  in  a  book-case.     The  apostles,  I  i)resume,  would  not 
have  objected  to  their  followers,  that  they  studied  the  writings  of 
the  heathen  philosophers,  provided  they  did  not  make  Plato  and 
Aristotle  arbiters  of  their  faith.     It  was  not  the  perusal  of  the 
books,  or  the  j^laces  in  which  they  were  found,  that  could  make 
a  matter   of  exception.     So  long  as  they  were  treated   simply  as 
human  compositions,  possessed  of  no  divine  authority,  and  to  be 
ultimately  tried  in  all  their  doctrines  by  the  sacred   canon,  the 
apostles  would  hardly  object  to  the  study  of  them.     It   was  no 
part  of  their  creed  to  denounce  freedom  of  inquiry  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  they  inculcated  the   noble  and  generous  maxim,  "prove 
all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."     Paul  did  not  hesitate 

*  "  I  believe  with  Walton,  that  the  Septuagint,  as  that  collection  was  called, 
contained  those  books  before  the  coming  of  the  Saviour.  You  think  this,  if 
true,  strengthens  your  argument.  I  think  not.  If  those  books,  thus  united, 
were  uninspired,  the  Saviour  and  the  apostles  were  certainly  bound  positively  to 
reject  them,  not  to  suiTer  the  unnatural  union  to  pass  into  the  church."  *  * 
But  you  do  not  believe  that  the  Septuagint,  at  the  Saviour's  time,  contained  the 
Apocrypha.  Rev.  sir,  a  more  disastrous  avowal  you  could  not  have  made. 
The  union,  then,  took  place  in  the  church,  necessarily  under  the  eyes  and  with 
the  approbation  of  the  apostles,  and  their  immediate,  most  faithful  disciples. 
These  books  are  quoted  and  referred  to  as  divinely  inspired  Scripture.  I  could 
not  desire  a  stronger  case.  Before  the  apostles,  the  contested  books  were  not 
inserted.  Immediately  afterwards  we  find  them  already  inserted.  A  change 
has  taken  place.  It  could  only  be  effected  by,  it  could  only  be  attributed  to,  the 
Saviour  and  his  apostles.  Therefore  they  DID  leave  these  works  to  the  Chris- 
tian world  as  INSPIRED."— Zff/er  //. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  205 

to  quote  the  heathen  poets ;  and  if  the  Hellenistic  Jews  and  the 
early  Christians  could  not  place  the  Apocrypha  by  the  side 
of  their  canonical  books  without  sanctioning  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  former,  how  could  Paul  weave  whole  sentences  of 
heathen  poetry  into  his  own  divine  compositions,  without,  at  the 
same  time,  endorsing  the  supernatural  inspiration  of  Aratus, 
Menander,  and  Euripides'?  The  argument  from  the  Septuagint's 
containing  the  Apocrypha,  is  so  evidently  preposterous,  that  it 
need  be  pressed  no  farther.  Let  it  lie  in  its  glory,  and  let  peace 
be  with  it. 

The  whole  matter  in  dispute  betwixt  us,  is  brought  down  at 
last  to  this  plain  issue.  The  Apocrypha  must  be  rejected  from 
the  sacred  canon,  and  treated  simply  as  human  compositions,  un- 
less it  can  be  shown,  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  did  sa?iction 
their  divine  inspiration,  and  authorize  their  use  as  standards  of 
faith.  Up  to  the  time  of  Christ,  there  was  no  satisfactory  proof 
that  they  constituted  any  part  of  the  oracles  of  God.  Whatever 
evidence,  therefore,  noio  exists  of  their  supernatural  character, 
must  have  been  developed  in  the  age  of  the  Apostles.  Their 
inspiration  must  have  been  approved  by  men  who  gave  unques- 
tionable evidence  that  they  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  This  is  the  proof  which  the  case  demands ;  and  if 
you  fail  to  produce  it,  you  are  only  spending  your  strength  for 
that  which  is  not  bread,  and  your  labor  for  that  which  satisfieth 
not. 


LETTER   XIII. 

Rejection  of  the  Apocrypha  by  the  Jews. — Faith  of  the  Primitive  Church  not  a  standard  to  us. 

To  you  and  all  your  predecessors  in  this  field  of  controversy, 
the  conduct  of  the  Jewish  Church  to  whom  were  committed  the 
oracles  of  God  in  regard  to  the  Apocrypha,  has  been  so  serious- 
ly embarrassing  that  your  efforts  to  explain  it  in  consistency  with 
your  own  views  of  their  divine  original,  are  a  powerful  illustra- 
tion of  the  desperate  expedients  to  which  men  may  be  driven  by 


206  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

extremity  of  circumstances,  who  are  resolved  not  to  receive  the 
truth.  The  rule  of  Augustine  is  so  palpably  just,  that  the  author- 
ity of  a  book  must  depend  on  the  testimony  of  contemporary 
witnesses,  that  the  absence  of  all  such  testimony,  in  the  present 
case,  or  of  any  testimony  at  all  for  a  long  series  not  of  years  alone, 
but  of  centuries,  is  felt  to  be  a  huge  impediment  to  your  cause. 
As  you  cannot  suborn  the  ancient  people  of  God  to  give  the  least 
countenance  to  your  vain  and  arrogant  pretensions,  you  expend  all 
your  ingenuity  upon  fruitless  and  abortive  efforts  to  reconcile 
the  exclusion  of  the  Apocryphal  books  from  the  Jewish  canon 
with  your  modern  hypothesis  of  their  divine  inspiration.  The 
Jesuits  cannot  disguise  their  spleen  at  the  stubborn  and  intracta- 
ble conduct  of  the  sons  of  Abraham.  In  the  true  spirit  of  some 
of  the  venerable  Fathers  of  Trent,  Bellarmin  speaks  of  the  Jew- 
ish synagogue  with  great  contempt,  representing  it  to  be,  from  its 
very  name,  a  collection  of  cattle  rather  than  men.  And  Campi- 
anus,  his  inferior  in  learning,  though  his  superior  in  elegance, 
treats  its  canon  as  a  mere  grammatical  affair,  dependent  upon  the 
characters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  and  incapable  of  being  in- 
creased after  the  books  had  reached  the  charmed  number  of  the 
letters.  Others  again  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  Jews,  as  a 
body,  always  entertained  a  profound  respect  for  these  disputed 
documents,  and  that  some  of  the  nation  actually  received  them  as 
divinely  inspired.!  But  of  all  the  theories  which  have  ever  been 
invented,  that  which  you  have  borrowed  and  endorsed  from  Mel- 

*  The  spirit  of  the  Fathers  of  Trent  may  be  gathered  from  the  following 
extract : 

"  To  these  reasons,  which  the  major  part  applauded,  others  added  also,  that 
if  the  Providence  of  God  hath  given  an  authentical  Scripture  to  the  Synagogue, 
and  an  authentical  New  Testament  to  the  Grecians,  it  cannot  be  said  without 
derogation,  that  the  Church  of  Rome,  more  beloved  than  the  rest.halh  wanted 
this  great  benefit,  and  therefore,  that  the  same  Holy  Ghost  who  did  dictate  the 
holy  Books,  hath  dictated  also  that  translation  which  ought  to  be  accepted  by 
the  Church  of  Rome." — Father  Paul,  p.  147.  For  a  full  and  able  refutation  of 
Campianusand  Bellarmin  upon  this  subject, see  Rainold.  Cens.  Lib.  Apoc.  Tom. 
i.  p.  96,  &LC. 

t  This  opinion  is  attributed  by  Melchior  Canus  to  Cochlaeus,  but  the  per- 
sons among  the  Jews  who  did  receive  these  books  have  never  been  brought  to 
light. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  207 

chior  Canus  is  beyond  controversy  the  most  unfortunate.*  It 
turns  upon  a  distinction  which  I  have  already  shown  to  be  false, 
which  Bellarmin  himself  saw  to  be  untenable,  and  consequently 
passed  without  discussion,  and  which,  as  presented  by  you,  is  ab- 
solutely ya^a/  to  your  cause.  You  deny  that  the  Jews  rejected 
the  Apocrypha,  because  they  had  no  satisfactory  evidence  that 
the  books  were  inspired,  or  possessed  no  tribunal  competent  to 
enlarge  the  extent  of  the  canon.  They  did  not  receive  them,  you 
admit,  but  as  no  body  commissioned  to  pronounce  an  authorita- 
tive judgment,  probably  existed,  there  could  be  no  rejection  in  the 
case.  You  lay  great'stress  upon  the  arbitrary  distinction  of  Canus, 
that  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  not  receiving  a  book  as  di- 
vine, and  positively  rc/cc^m^  it  as  a  human  composition. 

Now,  sir,  you  have  only  to  turn  to  your  second  letter  to  per- 
ceive what  you  regarded  as  satisfactory  proof,  that  in  the  days  of 
Ezra  an  infallible  tribunal  existed,  a  council  of  the  church,  in  the 
Old  Law  commissiond  by  God  for  the  express  purpose  of  teach- 
ing the  faithful  what  were  the  inspired  books.     In  your  first  and 
subsequent  letters,  conclusive  evidence  is  furnished  of  your  firm 
conviction,  that  many  of  these  Apocryphal  books  were  written 
before  the  time  of  the  great   synagogue,  and  consequently  must 
have  been  in  existence  at  the  period  of  Ezra.     You  attribute,  for 
instance,  the  book  of  Wisdom  to  Solomon ;  Baruch,  according 
to  you,  was  originally  an  integral  portion  of  Jeremiah,  and  the 
internal  evidence  is  strong,  that  the  book  of  Tobit  was  written 
some   six  or   seven  hundred  years  before  the  advent  of  Christ. 
Then  again,  the  song  of  the  three  children,  the  history  of  Susan- 
nah, together  with  the  story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  you  represent 
as  having  been  originally  parts  of  Daniel.    The  additions,  too,  to 
the  book  of  Esther  you  make  to  be  a  portion  of  the  book  itself. 
From  these  statements  it  is  evident  that  when  the  Jewish  canon 
was  settled,  some  of  the  Apocryphal  books  were  in  being     Here, 

*  "Aliud  est  enim  non  accipere,  aliud  rejicere.  Certe  Judaei  intra  suum  can- 
onem  hos  libros  publica  authoritate  minirae  receperunt,  tametsi  non  nulli  ex 
illis,  sacros  et  Divinos  esse  credideiint." — Lib.  ii.  cap.  x. 

It  is  one  thing  not  to  receive,  and  another  to  reject.  Certainly  the  .Tews 
did  not  receive  these  books  into  their  canon,  and  yet  some  of  them  believed 
them  to  be  sacred  and  divine. 


208  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

then,  is  a  curious  question ;  if  a  body  specially  commissioned  to 
teach  the  faithful  what  where  the  inspired  books,  should  omit  to 
enumerate  among  them  any  that  were  truly  inspired,  would  not 
such  omission  be  exactly  tantamount  to  positive   rejection  ?     It 
would  be  vain  to  say  that  no  sufficient  evidence  existed  that  the 
omitted  books  were  really  inspired.    The  very  object  of  appoint- 
ing such  a  body  is  to  afford  that  evidence ;  neither  can  it  be  pre- 
tended that  the  books,  though  in  being  at  the  time,  might  be 
unknown  to  the  tribunal,  since  according  to  the  very  terms  of  its 
commission,  it  was  authorized  to  pronounce  with  infallible  cer- 
tainty what  books  were  inspired.     Hence,  such  a  body  must  have 
known  all  the  inspired  books  that  were  extant  at  the  time,  and 
its  failure  to  insert  any  book  in  the  canon,  becomes,  by  conse- 
quence, a  damning  proof  of  its  human  and  earthly  origin.     Now 
if  an  infallible  council  settled  the  canon  of  the  Jewish  Church, 
and  such,  we  have  seen,  is  your  hypothesis ;  if  at  the  time  when 
the  canon  was  settled,  Baruch,  Wisdom,  and  Tobit,  the  additions 
to  Daniel  and  the  additions  to  Esther,  were  extant;  if  it  is  unde- 
niably certain  that  these  compositions  were  not  inserted,  is  not 
the  conclusion  irresistible  that  they  were  rejected  by  a  body  com- 
petent to  determine  their  character  ?    Will  you  be  pleased  to  ex- 
plain upon  any  other  hypothesis  how  it  happened  that  if  Baruch 
was  an  integral  portion  of  Jeremiah,  the  great  synagogue  separat- 
ed it  from  the  rest  of  the  book  1  Let  me  ask  you  again,  if  Wisdom 
were  written  by  Solomon,  and  was,  as  you  say,  truly  inspired, 
why  did  it  not  receive  at  the  hands  of  the  council  the  same 
treatment  with  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and   Canticles?      How 
comes  it  that  the  song  of  the  three  children,   and  the  story  of 
Bel  and  the  Dragon,  did  not  pass  into  the  canon  with  the  rest  of 
Daniel?     Why  were  the  additions  to  the  book  of  Esther   ex- 
cluded, and  why  was  Tobias,  your  darling  Tobias,  prevented  from 
being  enrolled  among  the  authoritative  documents  of  faith  ? 

One  of  two  things  is  intuitively  evident,  either  the  tribunal 
which  settled  the  canon  of  the  Jews  was  not  competent  to  teach 
the  faithful  what  were  the  inspired  books,  or  Baruch,  Wisdom, 
and  Tobit,  were  rejected.  If  you  accede  to  the  first  proposition, 
you  contradict  your  repeated  declarations  that  the  Jews  did  not 
reject  the  Apocrypha,  since,  according  to  this  view,  they  must 


APOCRYPHA  DISCUSSED  AND  REFUTED.  209 

liave  rejected  some  of  them.  So  that  self-contradiction  awaits 
you  whichever  horn  of  the  dilemma  you  choose  to  adopt.  If, 
however,  you  admit  what  upon  the  preceding  statement  of  the 
case  cannot  be  consistently  denied,  that  any  portion  of  the 
Apocrypha  was  rejected,  then,  according  to  your  own  hypothe- 
sis, you  have  the  testimony  of  an  infallible  body  against  the 
inspiration  of  the  rejected  portion.  This  reduces  you  to  a  still 
more  deplorable  dilemma;  and  how  you  will  extricate  yourself, 
it  is  impossible  for  me  to  determine.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
great  synagogue  of  Ezra  stares  you  in  the  face,  pronouncing 
with  infallible  certainty  that  certain  books  are  not  inspired ;  on 
the  other,  you  are  damned  by  the  Council  of  Trent,  if  you  do 
not  receive  it  as  infallible  truth  that  these  same  books  are  in- 
spired. *'  When  Greek  meets  Greek,  then  comes  the  tug  of 
war." 

My  object  in  exposing  the  suicidal  character  of  your  argu- 
ment, is  simply  to  shovv,  that  upon  every  view  of  the  case  the 
testimony  of  the  Jewish  Church  is  clear  and  decided  against 
the  inspiration  of  the  books  whose  divine  authority  you  have  un- 
dertaken to  defend.  That  testimony  you  cannot  evade.  Your 
nice  distinctions  are  wholly  ineffectual,  and  if  you  cannot  rebut 
the  decision  of  the  Jewish  Church  by  the  authoritative  instruc- 
tions of  Christ  or  his  apostles,  your  cause  is  hopeless.  Let  the 
reader,  then,  bear  distinctly  in  mind,  that  what  you  are  required 
to  prove  is  the  historical  fact,  that  our  blessed  Saviour,  or  his 
inspired  Apostles,  committed  the  Apocrypha  to  the  Christian 
Church  as  infallible  standards  of  faith.  Up  to  the  time  of 
Christ,  we  find  them  treated  as  human  compositions  ;  and  we 
must  continue  to  regard  them  in  the  same  light,  unless  it  can 
be  shown  that  our  great  prophet  has  otherwise  instructed  the 
church. 

In  your  pretended  refutation  of  the  second  argument  of  my 
original  essay,  you  undertake  the  hopeless  task  of  proving  that 
the  Primitive  Church  received  these  books  from  the  hands  of 
the  apostles,  as  inspired  jnodiutions.  Your  reasoning,  if  a  series 
of  assumptions  can  be  called  reasoning,  may  be  reduced  to  the 
following  syllogism  :  Whatever  books  the  Primitive  Church 
received  as  inspired,  must  have  been  received  upon  the  authority 

10* 


210  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

of  Christ  and  his  apostles.  The  Apocrypha  were  received  by 
the  Primitive  Church  as  inspired ;  therefore,  they  must  have 
been  received  upon  the  authority  of  Christ  and  his  apostles. 
The  testimony  of  the  Primitive  Church  is  consequently  your 
medium  of  proof;  a  testimony,  in  this  case,  which,  as  we  shall 
subsequently  see,  is  not  pointed  and  direct,  but  only  mediate 
and  inferential. 

This  argument   or  syllogism  is  grossly  at  fault  in  two  partic- 
ulars.    In  the  first  place,  the  major  proposition  is  not  logically 
necessary,  and  you  have  not  attempted  to  show  the  connection 
between  the  subject  and  predicate.     For  aught  that  appears  to 
the  contrary,  the  primitive  Christians  might  have  received  books 
as  inspired  without  the  sanction  of  Christ  or  his  apostles.     Cer- 
tain it  is  that  you  have  nowhere  proved  that  they  could  not  have 
done   it.     You  tell  us  that,  "  if  they  united  in  receiving  those 
works  as  inspired,  then  is  our  (the  Papal)  cause  fully  sustained; 
for  they  would  not  have  thus  united  unless  they  had  been  taught 
by  the  apostles   that  these  books  formed   a  part  of  the  word  of 
God."     How  does  it  appear  that  they  would  not  have  united  ex- 
cept upon  the  specified  condition?     All    that  I   can  find  in  the 
shape  of  proof  is,  "that  they  were  tried  in   the  furnace  of  perse- 
cution, and  laid  down  their  lives  by  thousands,  rather  than  swerve 
one  jot  or  tittle  from   the  truth   handed  down   to  them  !"     That 
they  were  exposed  to  dangers,  sufferings,  and  death,  is  evident, 
but  that  this  proves  any  thing  more  than   the  sincerity  of  their 
convictions,  I  am  utterly  unable  to  perceive.     We  may  grant  that 
they  would  not  have  added  to  the  sacred  canon  books  which  they 
did  not  believe  to  be  inspired  ;   but  then  the  question  is,  whether 
their  belief  was  always  founded  on  apostolic  teaching?     Might 
they  not  be   mistaken   as   to  what  Christ  and   his   apostles  had 
actually  taught?     If  they  were   fallible,  liable   to  be  misled  by 
desio-nincr  men,  the  crafts  of  the  devil,  or  the  deceitful  workings 
of  their  own  hearts,  they  might  have  been  perfectly  sincere,  and 
yet  have  received  error  in  the  place  of  truth.     Even  in  the  days 
of  the  apostles,  and  among  the  congregations  collected  by  their 
labors,  the  mystery  of  iniquity  had  begun  to  work  ;  and  none  can 
read  the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Galatians  without  being  deeply 
convinced  that  the  faith  of  professing  Christians  was  not  always 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  211 

adjusted  to  the  standard  of  inspired  instruction.  Paul  admon- 
ishes the  Ephesian  Elders,  that  even  among  themselves  should 
men  arise  speaking  perverse  things  to  draw  disciples  after  them; 
and  the  exhortations  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia  reveal  any 
thing  but  a  necessary  connection  between  the  actual  belief  of 
the  people,  and  the  lessons  which  they  had  received  from  in- 
spired teachers.  The  faith,  consequently,  of  the  primitive 
Christians,  is  an  exceedingly  uncertain  medium  through  which 
to  arrive  at  the  doctrines  of  Christ  and  his  apostles;  and  yet,  un- 
less there  be  an  exact  correspondence  between  them — unless  the 
one  answers  to  the  other,  as  an  image  corresponds  to  its  original, 
tlie  seal  to  its  impression,  the  purpose  of  your  argument  is  not 
answered.  You  infer  that  such  must  have  been  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  because  such  v/as  the  faith  of  the  church.  Now  if  there 
be  any  possibility  of  error  or  deception  on  the  part  of  the  church, 
the  force  of  your  conclusion  is  proportionably  weakened.  It 
may  be  true,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the  primitive  church  did 
not  receive  any  other  canon  but  that  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  ; 
but  then,  in  order  to  determine  this  point,  it  must  be  previously 
known  what  books  our  Saviour  received,  and  what  books  the 
primitive  church  received.  When  the  documents  included  in 
their  repective  canons  are  fully  ascertained,  and  each  canon  be- 
comes consequently  known,  we  can  then  compare  them,  and  pro- 
nounce upon  their  mutual  agreement  or  discrepancy.  But  if  one 
of  the  canons  be  unknown^  I  see  no  clew  by  which  a  knowledge 
of  the  other  will  enable  us  to  resolve  our  difficulties.  It  is  true 
that  the  canon  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  ought  to  be  the  canon 
of  the  Christian  Church,  but  he  who  could  reason  from  right  to 
reality,  from  what  should  be  to  what  is,  will  find  himself  halting 
on  many  a  lame  conclu&ion.  Now  in  the  present  case,  your  pro- 
fessed object  is  to  ascertain  tvhat  books  Christ  and  his  apostles 
delivered  to  the  church  as  the  word  of  God  :  this  is  the  unknoum 
fact  to  be  settled.  You  attempt  to  settle  it  by  appealing  to  the 
faith  of  the  primitive  Christians.  Your  argument,  of  course, 
depends  on  the  assumption  that  the  primitive  Christians  believed 
nothing  but  what  Christ  and  his  apostles  actually  taught ;  and 
of  this  assumption,  the  only  proof  which  you  furnish,  goes  no 
further  than  to  establish  the  sincerity  of  the  primitive  disciples; 


212  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

a  point  which  can  answer  your  purpose  only  on  the  gratuitous 
hypothesis,  that  none  can  be  in  error  and  at  the  same  time  sin- 
cere, or  that  none  can  be  deceived  without  being  also  necessarily 
hypocrites.  When  you  shall  have  succeeded  in  proving  that 
honesty  and  mistake  are  incompatible  terms,  mutually  contradic- 
tory and  destructive  of  each  other,  then,  and  not  till  then,  your 
argument  will  have  something  of  logical  coherence.  To  put  the 
weakness  of  your  reasoning  in  a  clearer  light :  if  it  were  admit- 
ted, which,  however,  cannot  be  done  consistently  with  truth, 
that  the  early  Christians  did,  in  fact,  believe  that  the  Apocry- 
phal books  were  inspired,  this  would  be  a  moral  phenomenon 
demanding  explanation.  In  all  reasoning  upon  testimony,  the 
principle  of  cause  and  effect  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  process.  A 
witness  simply  puts  us  in  possession  of  the  convictions  of  his  own 
mind.  These  convictions  are  an  effect,  for  which  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  nature  prompts  us  to  seek  an  adequate  cause,  and 
when  no  other  satisfactory  solution  can  be  given  but  the  reality 
of  the  facts  to  which  he  himself  ascribes  his  impressions,  then 
we  admit  the  existence  of  the  facts.  But  if  any  other  cause  can 
be  assigned,  the  testimony  should  not  command  our  assent.  If 
a  man  afflicted  with  the  jaundice  should  testify  that  the  walls  of 
a  house  were  yellow,  we  might  be  fully  persuaded  of  the  sincerity 
of  his  own  belief;  but  as  an  adequate  cause,  apart  from  the  reality 
of  the  fact,  could  be  assigned  for  his  conviction,  we  should  not 
feel  bound  to  receive  his  statement.  Two  questions,  conse- 
(^uently,  must  always  arise  in  estimating  the  value  of  testimony; 
the  first  respects  the  sincerity  of  the  witnesses  :  do  they,  or  do 
they  not  express  the  real  impressions  that  have  been  made  upon 
their  own  minds?  The  second  respects  the  cause  of  these  con- 
victions: are  there  any  known  principles  which  can  account  for 
them  without  an  admission  of  the  facts  to  which  the  w^itnesses 
attribute  them  ?  When  we  are  satisfied  that  the  witnesses  are 
sincere,  and  that  no  causes  apart  from  tiie  reality  of  the  facts 
can  be  assigned  in  the  case,  then  the  testimony  is  entitled  to  be 
received  without  hesitation.  Such  being  the  laws  which  regu- 
late the  value  of  testimony,  you  were  bound,  after  having  shown 
that  the  primitive  Christians  believed  the  Apocrypha  to  be  in- 
spired— you  were  bound  to  show,  in  addition,  that  no  other  as- 


.     APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  213 

signable  cause  could  satisfactorily  account  for  this  belief,  this 
moral  effect,  but  the  authority  of  Christ  and  his  apostles. 

In  the  mean  time,  it  may  be  well  to  apprize  you  of  the  fact, 
that  the  actual  faith  of  the  primitive  church,  as  such,  is  not 
received  by  Protestants  as  an  authoritative  standard  of  truth. 
There  is  always  a  previous  inquiry  into  the  grounds  of  that 
faith,  and  if  they  should  be  found  weak,  futile,  or  insufficient, 
thinking  men  feel  no  more  obligation  to  reason  badly,  because 
good  men  before  them  have  done  so,  than  to  disregard  any  of 
the  sacred  principles  of  justice,  because  distinguished  saints 
have  fallen  into  grievous  sins.  The  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  in 
the  present  day,  does  not  believe  in  the  Divine  authority  of 
those  books  which  it  admits  to  be  canonical,  because  the  ancient 
church  regarded  them  in  the  same  light ;  but  because  there  is 
satisfactory  evidence  that  they  were  composed  by  men  who 
wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held  by  the  first  Christians,  amounts  to  nothing 
more  than  a  presumption  that  there  was  sufficient  proof  of  their 
supernatural  origin  ;  but  that  proof  itself,  and  not  the  effect 
which  it  had  on  the  minds  of  others,  must  be  the  ultimate  his- 
torical grounds  of  faith.  Historical  testimony  puts  us  in  posses- 
sion of  this  proof;  it  lays  before  us  the  facts  upon  which  the 
primitive  Christians  formed  their  judgment,  and  puts  us  as  nearly 
as  possible  in  the  same  relative  situation  with  themselves,  so 
that  we  can  form  an  opinion  upon  the  same  evidence  which  was 
first  submitted  to  their  understandings.  History  bridges  over 
the  chasm  of  time,  and  makes  us  contemporary  with  the  events 
which  it  sets  in  order  before  us.  Hence  it  is  absolutely  false 
to  say  that  the  church  now  receives  any  document  as  inspired, 
because  the  church  anciently  received  it ;  the  church  now  has 
the  same  facts  in  history,  which  the  church  anciently  saio  and 
heard,  and  consequently  founds  its  judgment  upon  the  same 
data.  The  only  difference  is  in  regard  to  the  medium  through 
which  the  knowledge  of  the  facts  is  reached  ;  but  the  ultimate 
ground  of  faith  is  the  same  in  both  cases.  If,  for  example,  I 
were  asked,  why  I  received  the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans, 
as  an  inspired  composition,  I  would  answer,  not  because  the 
primitive  church  received  it — that  would  only  create  a  presump- 


214  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE  , 

tion  in  its  favor  ;  but  because  there  is  satisfactory  proof  that 
Paul  wrote  it,  and  equally  conclusive  evidence  that  Paul  attested 
by  miracles  his  supernatural  commission  as  a  teacher  of  the 
faithful.  Novv,  sir,  if  you  could  adduce  any  adequate  historical 
testimony  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  ^«ye  their  sanction  to  the 
Apocrypha  as  inspired  compositions,  you  would  then  be  able  to 
adduce  a  sufficient  ground  of  faith.  I  have  already  admitted, 
that  wherever  a  document  can  be  shown  to  have  been  written 
by  persons  empowered  to  achieve  miracles  as  the  proofs  of  their 
commission,  or  wherever  a  document  can  be  shown  to  have 
received  the  approbation  and  sanction  of  those  who  were  super- 
naturally  commissioned,  the  historical  evidence  of  its  inspiration 
is  complete.  If  you  could,  therefore,  produce  from  the  sacred 
Scriptures,  or  from  any  contemporary  writers  worthy  of  credit, 
direct  statements  of  the  fact,  or  of  other  facts  necessarily  involv- 
ing it,  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  delivered  to  the  Church 
the  documents  in  question  as  the  word  of  God,  you  would  then 
allege  something  to  the  purpose.  But,  sir,  not  a  particle  of 
such  testimony  have  you  been  able  to  adduce.  You  have  sim- 
ply inquired  what  the  primitive  Church  believed;  and  without 
pausing  to  investigate  the  grounds  of  its  belief,  or  the  possibility 
of  mistake,  you  have  boldly  assumed  that  it  could  believe  nothing 
but  what  it  had  received  upon  inspired  authority. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  your  syllogism  is  just  as  faulty  in 
the  minor,  as  it  is  in  the  major  proposition.  It  so  happens,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  the  primitive  Christians  did  not  receive  any 
other  canon  but  that  of  the  Jews,  which  was  also  the  canon  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles.  They  might  have  received  another, 
so  that  their  endorsement  of  a  book  is  no  necessary  proof  of  its 
Divine  authority;  but  as  it  is  historically  true  that  they  did  not, 
your  minor  proposition  is  utterly  without  support,  and  my  ori- 
ginal assertion,  that  the  unbroken  testimony  of  the  Church  for 
four  centuries  is  against  the  inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha,  re- 
mains unshaken,  notwithstanding  your  multiplied  quotations  ani 
elaborate  trifling  in  attempting  to  refute  it. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  215 


LETTER    XIV. 

The  existence  of  the  Apocrypha  in  ancient  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  no  proof  of  inspiration, 
— Not  quoted  by  the  Apostolic  Fathers. 

That  the  primitive  church  ascribed  to  the  Apocrypha  the 
same  canonical  aatliority  which  they  were  accustomed  to  attrib- 
ute to  Moses,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psahns,  you  endeavor  to  col- 
lect from  the  facts,  that  these  books  were  embodied  in  all  the 
ancient  versions  of  the  Bible,  and  quoted  by  the  fathers,  and  not 
only  quoted,  but  quoted  distinctly  as  sacred  Scripture.  "The 
manner,"  you  inform  us,  "  in  which  the  Christians  of  the  first 
four  centuries  acted  in  regard  to  these  writings,  shows  that  they 
were  left  to  them  by  the  apostles  as  inspired."  The  hrsi  jJ ecu li- 
arity  in  their  manner  of  acting  which  discloses  the  sentiments 
of  the  primitive  disciples,  is  to  be  found  in  the  circumstance, 
Avhich  you  have  gratuitously  assumed,  that  ^^  all  these  books,  or 
parts  of  books,  were  contained  in  the  Old  Testament  as  used  by 
the  early  Christians  in  the  infancy  of  the  church.'' 

I  shall  not  here  interrupt  the  tenor  of  the  argument  to  expose 
the  rashness  of  your  inferences  on  the  subject  of  some  of  these 
ancient  versions.  It  is  enough  for  my  present  purpose  to  ob- 
serve, that,  upon  the  supposition  that  the  facts  are  precisely  as 
you  have  stated  them  to  be,  the  conclusion  by  no  means  follows 
which  you  were  anxious  to  deduce.  You  have  already  expressed 
the  opinion,  that  antecedently  to  the  advent  of  the  Saviour,  when 
there  was  no  satisfactory  proof  of  their  Divine  inspiration,  and 
no  tribunal  commissioned  to  enlarge  the  dimensionsof  the  canon, 
and  when,  of  course,  they  could  not  have  been  received  as  any 
portion  of  the  rule  of  faith,  these  very  books  were  yet  embodied 
in  the  version  of  the  Seventy.  How  does  it  happen  that  the  Hel- 
lenistic Jews  could  incorporate  into  their  translation  of  the  ca- 
nonical books,  others  which  they  were  known  not  to  receive  as 
inspired,  while  the  same  privilege  is  denied  to  the  Christian 
church?  What  is  there  in  the  change  of  dispensation  that  shall 
make  it  a  certain  proof  after  the  advent  of  Christ,  that  a  work 
is  believed  to  be  inspired  if  found  in  justaxposition  to  those  which 
are  confessed  to  be  Divine,  when  the   same  collocation,  under 


216  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

the  previous  economy  carried  no  such  inference  along  with  it? 
I  had  always  supposed  that  the  major  proposition  of  an  argument 
should  be  universally  true,  and  that  when  any  particular  case 
was  adduced  which  proved  an  exception  to  its  general  applica- 
tion, the  argument  ceased  to  be  conclusive.  Reasoning  is  only 
a  felicitous  method  of  applying  to  the  parts,  that  which  is  con- 
fessed to  be  true  of  the  whole,  and  when  it  is  found  from  experi- 
ence, or  any  other  source  of  information,  that  the  process  of 
arrangement  has  been  wrong,  and  that  the  separate  elements  do 
not  possess  the  properties  which  constitute  the  class,  the  leading 
proposition  becomes  false,  and  the  argument  is  said  to  be  re- 
futed. In  the  present  case,  you  evidently  reason  on  the  princi- 
ple that  whatever  books  are  embraced  in  the  same  volume  with 
those  which  are  confessedly  inspired,  must  be  believed  bythose 
who  sanction  the  combination,  to  be  inspired  also.  Now,  to 
assert  that  there  are  numerous  instances  in  which  such  a  mixture 
of  the  human  and  Divine  has  been  sanctioned,  as  the  proposition 
supposes  to  be  impossible,  is  to  accumulate  refutations  on  each 
other.  In  addition  to  the  case  of  the  Jews,  which  has  already 
been  adduced,  the  Greeks  to  this  day  reject  the  Apocrypha 
from  the  canon,  although  they  give  them  a  place  in  their  copies 
of  the  Scriptures.  Who  believes  that  because  these  books  are 
found  in  the  authorized  English  translation  of  the  Bible,  there- 
fore the  Church  of  England  recei^^es  them  as  inspired?  or  that 
the  large  body  of  Protestant  churches  who  adopt  that  translation, 
defer  to  their  authority  as  supreme?  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  incorporation  of  the  Apocrypha  with  the  Septuagint,  was 
the  real  cause  of  their  being  subsequently  embraced  in  the  later 
translations  of  the  Scriptures.  The  old  Italic  version  was  made 
from  that  of  the  Seventy,  and,  of  course,  contained  precisely  the 
same  books  with  the  original  from  which  it  was  made.  The 
Hebrew  Scriptures  were  "  quite  inaccessible,"  says  Bishop 
Marsh,  "  to  Latin  translators  in  Europe  and  Africa,  during  the 
first  three  centuries.  In  those  ages  the  Jews  themselves  who  in- 
habited Greece,  Italy,  and  Africa,  read  the  Old  Testament  in 
the  Greek  version.  Thus  the  Greek  Bible  became  to  the  Latin 
Christians  a  kind  oi  original,  from  which  they  derived  their  own 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  217 

translations  of  the  Scriptures."*  If  the  Peschito  version  was, 
as  it  is  said  to  have  been,  made  directly  from  the  Hebrew,  it 
could  not  originally  have  contained  the  Apocrypha;  these  books 
must  have  been  subsequently  added  from  the  Greek  copies  in 
which  they  were  circulated.  Whatever  currency,  consequently, 
these  spurious  documents  obtained  among  the  early  Christians, 
is  due  to  the  Septuagint ;  and  as  upon  your  own  hypothesis  their 
insertion  in  that  version  took  place  previously  to  the  advent  of 
Christ,  when  the  books  were  confessed  not  to  be  inspired,  we 
must  look  for  other  motives  besides  an  appeal  to  Divine  authority 
for  the  amalgamation  of  human  and  Divine  in  the  same  volume. 
If,  however,  you  prefer  the  hypothesis,  that  the  mixture  in  ques- 
tion was  made  subsequently  to  the  incarnation  of  the  Saviour, 
after  the  apostles  and  apostolic  fathers  had  fallen  asleep,  the  phe- 
nomenon can  be  satisfactorily  explained,  without  resorting  to  the 
fiction  of  inspiration. 

There  are  obvious  considerations,  apart  from  any  convictions 
of  Divine  authority,  that  would  lead  the  Christians,  especially  of 
the  third  century,  as  well  as  the  Jews,  to  a  diligent  study  of  these 
books.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  been  much  in  vogue  in  the 
Christian  church  for  the  first  two  centuries  after  Christ.  We 
find  scarcely  any  allusion  to  them  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  no 
quotations  in  Justin  Martyr,  and  no  certain  proof  that  they  were 
generally  read.  But  a  mystic  spirit  soon  corrupted  the  piety  of 
the  church  ;  a  spirit  of  dreamy  superstition,  similar  to  that  which 
Lightfoot  attributes  to  the  Jews  of  the  second  Temple,  which 
these  books  were  well  adapted  to  foster,  and  which,  as  it  gained 
ground,  would  prompt  its  victims  to  regard  their  follies  as  signal 
illustrations  of  piety.  This  congeniality  with  a  false  spirit  of 
religion,  coupled  with  their  relations  to  the  history  of  God's  an- 
cient people,  would  give  them  a  popularity  which  some  of  them 
certainly  did  not  deserve;  they  would  be  regarded  with  that  sort 
of  religious  veneration  with  which  the  Christians  of  the  present 
day  contemplate  the  works  of  distinguished  Divines,  and  would 
be  bound  up  in  the  same  volume  with  their  Bibles,  for  conve- 
nience of  reference,  just  as  the  Scotch  combine  in  the  same 

*  Marsh,  Conip.  View,  p.  99. 


218  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

book,  the   Scriptures   of  God  and   the  metrical  version  of  the 
Psalms  by  Rous. 

It  may  be  well  to  observe,  moreover,  that  this  argument  from 
-ancient  versions  proves  entirely  too  much  ;  it  proves,  if  it  prove 
any  thing,  that  the  books  which  Rome  herself  rejects  as  Apocry- 
phal, must  be  a  part  of  the  canon.  The  third  and  fourth  books 
of  Esdras,  together  with  the  prayer  of  Manasses,  are  actually  em- 
bodied in  that  very  translation  of  the  Bible,  which  the  Council  of 
Trent  pronounces  to  be  authentic*  The  fourth  book  of  Esdras, 
though  not  found  in  the  Septuagint,  is  found  in  existing  manu- 
scripts of  the  Vulgate.  The  third  book  of  Esdras  occurs  in  the 
principal  copies  of  the  Septuagint,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Complutensian  edition  and  those  which  are  derived  from  it.  The 
prayer  of  Manasses  is  inserted  m  manuscripts  of  the  Vulgate,  at 
the  end  of  Chronicles,  and  is  certainly  found  in  some  editions  of 
the  Septuagint.  The  third  book  of  Maccabees,  too,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  most  ancient  manuscripts  of  the  Septuagint  noio 
extant.  Why,  then,  are  not  these  books  canonical?  They  are 
introduced  into  approved  copies  of  the  Bible;  they  occur  in 
translations  which  the  early  Christians  were  accustomed  to  con- 
sult; and  if  they  could  be  embodied  in  the  same  volume  with  the 
canonical  Scriptures,  without  being  received  as  inspired,  I  see 
not  why  the  same  privilege  might  not  be  extended  to  Wisdom, 
Tobit,  and  Judith.  Dismissing,  therefore,  your  argumsnt  from 
the  case  of  the  ancient  versions,  as  less  than  nothing  and  alto- 
gether lighter  than  vanity,  I  proceed  to  that  upon  which  Bel- 
larmin  rests  the  strength  of  your  cause  :  the  quotations  from  the 
Christian  fathers.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  you  have  not,  like 
this  distinguished  Jesuit,  precisely  specified  the  point  upon  which 
the  discussion  should  be  made  to  turn.  I  am  at  a  loss  to  under- 
stand whether  you  regard  a  quotation,  though  unaccompanied 
with  any  expressions  of  respect  that  would  seem  to  imply  inspi- 
ration, as  sufficient  proof,  or  whether  you  design  to  confine  the 
argument  to  those  allusions  in  which  the  Apocrypha  are  said  to 
be  Divine.  You  are  just  as  profuse  in  bringing  forward  instances 
in  which  there  is  nothing  stronger  than  a  mere  accommodation  of 

*  Marsh,  Comp.  View.  pp.  108,  9  (note) 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  219 

the  words  of  the  Apocrypha,  as  in  adducing  passages  which  seem 
to  invest  them  with  a  sacred  authority.  Bellarmin,  on  the  other 
hand,  restricted  the  argument  to  those  quotations  in  which  these 
works  are  cited  as  Divine.*  I  have  already  shown  that  mere 
quotations  can  prove  nothing  but  the  existence  of  a  book,  and 
to  accommodate  a  passage  is  only  to  endorse  the  particular  senti- 
ment which  it  contains,  without  any  necessary  approbation  of  the 
work  itself 

To  prove  that  the  Fathers  quoted  the  Apocrypha,  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  proving  that  they  believed  these  documents 
to  be  infallible  standards  of  faith.  Paul  quoted  the  heathen  > 
poets,  and  the  ancient  infidels  quoted,  in  scorn,  the  canonical 
Scriptures.  It  is,  therefore,  truly  unfortunate  for  your  cause 
that  you  have  loaded  your  articles  with  numerous  extracts  which, 
if  they  were  faithfully  given,  which  in  many  cases  they  are  not, 
from  the  original  works  of  the  Fathers,  would  prove  nothing 
more  than  that  they  had  read  the  books  which  Rome  pronounces  -• 
to  be  inspired,  and  adopted  from  them  sentiments  and  opinions 
which  they  deemed  to  be  applicable  to  their  own  purposes. 
By  the  same  method  of  reasoning,  there  is  hardly  a  Protestant 
writer  of  any  note,  who  might  not  be  convicted  of  acceding  to 
the  authority  of  the  Romish  canon.  If  you  will  turn  to  the 
works  of  Bishop  Butler,  and  consult  his  fourth  sermon  upon  the 
government  of  the  tongue,  in  the  very  small  compass  of  that 
single  discourse,  you  will  find  more  extracts  from  the  Apocryphal 
books  than  you  have  been  able  to  collect  from  all  the  writings  of 
the  apostolic  Fathers.  The  fifth  sermon  concludes  as  the  fourth 
had  done,  with  a  passage  from  the  son  of  Sirach;  and  the  sixth 
almost  opens  with  one.  In  the  sermons  of  Donne,  Barrow,  and 
Jeremy  Taylor,  we  find  all  classes  of  books,  heathen  and  Chris- 
tian, gay  and  grave,  lively  and  severe,  indiscriminately  quoted 
in  the  margin  ;  and  yet  these  men  would  have  thought  it  a  most 
preposterous  conclusion,  that  because  they  enriched  their  own 


*  Disputat.  de  cont.  lib.  i.  c.  x.  vol.  i.  p.  42.  His  words  are,  "  Apostoli 
enim  poterant  sine  aliis  testimoniis  declarare  libros  illos  esse  canonicos,  quod  et 
fecerunt :  alio  qui  numquam  Cyprianus  et  Clemens  et  alii  quoscitabimus,  tarn 
constanter  dixissent  eos  esse  Divinos." 


220  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

compositions,  pZem's  manibus,  with  the  spoils  of  others,  therefore 
they  believed   in  the  Divine  inspiration  of  Aristotle  and  Tully, 
Lactantius  and  Origen,  Euripides  and  Horace.     Even  the  hum- 
ble writer  of  these  lines   could  not   escape   the  imputation   of 
Romanism,  if  to  quote  a  book   and  to  believe  it  inspired  are 
necessarily  connected.     In  my  own  published  sermons  upon  the 
Vanity  and  Glory  of  Man,  written  long  after  my  essay  on   the 
Apocrypha  had  been  anonymously  committed  to  the  press,  an 
extract  is  made  from  the  book  of  Wisdom  ;  and  in  my  unpublished 
lectures  upon  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Idolatry,  the  splendid 
Apocryphal  passage  on  the  same  subject  is  introduced  with  com- 
mendation and  applause.     If  bare  quotations  are  to  be  regarded 
as  satisfactory  proofs  of  a  supernatural  origin,  the  cause  of  Rome 
can  be  sustained  by  "  reasons  as  plentiful  as  blackberries."     It 
is  evident,  however,  that  quotations  themselves  can  prove  nothing 
to  the  purpose  ;    it  is  the  manner  in  which  the  quotations  are 
made,   and  the  e/ir/s  to  which  they  are  applied.     If  the  Apocry- 
pha are  not  quoted  as  infallible  standards  of  faith,  of  equal  au- 
thority with  Moses,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,  or  if  there  are 
not  circumstances  attending  the  quotations  which  show  indispu- 
tably that  the  writers  regarded  them  as  the  word  of  God,  from 
whose  decision  there  was  no  appeal,  nothing  can  be  gathered 
from  the  fact,  in  behalf  of  these  works,  which  could  not  also  be 
collected  from  similar  quotations  in  behalf  of  the  heathen  philoso- 
phers and  poets.     Why  the  ancient  Fathers  should  be  denied  the 
privilege  conceded  to  all  writers,  of  adorning  their  compositions 
with  elegant  expressions  or  judicious  sentiments,  which  might 
chance  to  strike  them  in  the  compass  of  their  reading,  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  me  to  comprehend.     It  is  certainly  ridiculous  to  say  that 
because  a  man  writes  upon  religious  subjects,  he  shall  not  lay  all 
the  resources  of  his  knowledge  under  tribute  to  supply  him  with 
apt  similitudes,  or  fitting  illustrations.     Surely  he  is  permitted  to 
bring  the  treasures  of  his  learning  to  the  feet  of  his  Redeemer, 
and  to  honor  his  master  with  the  spoils  which  he  has  gathered  in 
his  literary  excursions. 

From  the  apostolic  fathers  you  have  pretended  to  present  us 
with  nothing  but  quotations,  unaccompanied  with  a  single  expres- 
sion that  indicates  the  light  in  which  the  original  works  were 


APOCRVrHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  221 

regarded.  If,  therefore,  your  extracts  had  been  accurate,  you 
would  have  gained  nothing  but  the  gratification  of  an  idle  vanity 
in  the  display  of  your  learning.  But  by  some  strange  fatality  of 
blundering,  which  seems  like  an  evil  genius  to  attend  you,  you 
have  only  exhibited  your  ignorance  of  the  Fathers  and  the  tongues 
in  which  their  works  were  written.  That  the  reader  may  be  able 
to  form  an  adequate  estimate  of  the  nature  and  value  of  your  ser- 
vices as  a  literary  critic,  I  shall  examine  your  extracts  from  the 
aposlolic  Fathers  with  a  degree  of  attention  which  they  do  not 
deserve.     And  first  from  Barnabas  : 

yteysi  yag  o  TCQOcprjTTjg  stil  tov  lagatjX'  ovui  tt]  ipV/^J]  uvtojp  otl  fjs- 
PovXsvviai  (jovltjv  norijgav  y,ad^  savTcav  siTiovisg'  d)](T(t)/j,EV  tov  dixaiov^ 
oTt  Sv(ixQi](noq  riy.iv  EdTi,  But  what  saith  the  Prophet  against 
Israel :  Woe  be  to  their  sons,  because  they  have  taken  wicked 
counsel  against  themselves,  saying,  let  us,  therefore,  lie  in  wait 
for  the  just,  because  he  is  not  for  our  turn. — Barnab.  Epist.  §  6. 

"  This  passage,"  you  tell  us,  '•'  is  composed  of  two  texts, 
Isaias  iii,  9,  '  TFoe  to  their  soul,  for  evils  are  rendered  to  them,' 
and  Wisdom  ii.  12,  '  Let  us,  therefore,  lie  in  wait  for  the  just, 
because  he  is  not  for  our  turn.'  Here  St.  Barnabas  quotes  in  the 
same  sentence,  and  as  of  equal  inspired  authority,  the  book 
of  Isaias  contained  in  the  canon  of  the  Jews,  and  that  of  Wis- 
dom ;  one  of  those  you  boldly  declare  to  be  of  no  more  authority 
than  Seneca's  letters  or  Tully's  Offices."  Will  the  reader  believe, 
after  this  confident  statement,  that  the  7choIe  passage  as  quoted 
by  Barnabas  occurs  almost  verbatim  in  the  book  of  Isaiah  as 
found  in  the  version  of  the  Seventy?  This,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  at  a  very  early  period  supplanted  the  Hebrew  originals,  and 
became  itself  the  source  of  appeal  and  the  fountain  of  authority. 
This  venerable  translation  Barnabas  used,  and  from  it  has  intro- 
duced the  text  which  you  have  attributed  to  the  book  of  Wisdom, 
but  which  is  not  there  to  be  found.  In  your  fourth  letter  you 
seem  to  be  sensible  that  you  had  gone  a  little  too  far  in  relation 
to  this  passage;  and  if  you  had  generously  and  magnanimously 
confessed  your  fault,  I  should  have  passed  the  matter  over  with- 
out any  notice.  If  you  had  not  obliquely  insinuated  a  doubt 
whether  Barnabas  drew  from  the  Septuagint  or  not,  when  the 
thing  is  as  plain  as  any  thing  of  that  sort  can  possibly  be  made, 


232  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

I  should  have  given  you  credit  for  an  honesty  and  candor  to  which 
I  am  afraid  your  lame  apology  shows  you  not  to  be  entitled. 
"  Candor,"  you  tell  us,  vvith  a  ludicrous  gravity,  when  you  were 
about  to  act  with  a  very  questionable  regard  to  its  precepts,  "re- 
quires that  I  should  make  a  remark  on  a  passage  in  my  last  let- 
ter." The  passage  to  which  you  refer  is  the  one  before  us — 
now  what  is  the  remark  ?  "I  did  not  at  that  moment  (when  writ- 
ing the  letter)  recollect  that  the  passage  from  Isaias  was  one  in 
which  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint  varies  from  the  Hebrew 
as  we  liave  it  now.  St.  Barnabas  does  not  quote  the  Septuagint 
exactly,  but  he  approaches  so  nearly  as  to  make  it  possible,  nay, 
probable,  that  the  difference  resulted  from  a  varying  reading  of 
the  Text,"  I  shall  now  give  the  passage  as  found  in  the  Septu- 
agint: 

OvuL  TTj  ipi'xi]  avTMV,  SioTi  ^t[jovl.BVVJUi  ^ovXt^v  ttovijQuv  y.a&  sav- 
Tfov,  eiTTOVieg'  drjcrmfxev  tov  dixaiov,  on  dv(TXQt](TTog  i/fiiv  fort, — Isaiah 
iii.  9,  10. 

Now  the  only  difference  in  the  passage  as  quoted  by  Barna- 
bas, and  as  found  in  Isaiah,  is  in  the  fifth  word,  the  causal  particle 
dioTi — of  which,  in  Barnabas,  the  first  syllable  is  wanting.  But 
the  part  of  the  sentence  which  you  ascribe,  in  your  third  letter, 
to  Wisdom,  is,  verbatim  ct  literatim,  the  same  in  the  Father  and 
Prophet.  But  the  beauty  of  the  whole  matter  lies  in  this :  in 
your  third  letter,  you  were  absolutely  certain  that  a  text  was 
quoted  from  Wisdom,  when  the  principal  word  in  the  text  was 
not  to  be  found  in  the  passage  to  which  you  referred  us.  Barna- 
bas says  8y](jM}xiv  Tov  di-Aaior.  In  Wisdom  it  is  written,  Evidgsvaco- 
jiiEr  ds  Tov  dixfuor.  But  in  your  fourth  letter  the  omission  of  a  sin- 
gle syllable  is  sufficient  to  raise  a  doubt — makes  it  only  probable 
that  a  quotation  is  intended.  You  were  quite  confident  that  a 
sentence  is  taken  from  Wisdom  when  the  leadino-  word  is 
changed,  another  word  added,  and  the  sense  materially  altered; 
you  are  not  so  sure  that  it  can  be  from  Isaiah,  when  the  sense, 
words,  and  every  thing  but  one  poor  harmless  syllable,  are  ex- 
actly preserved  If,  sir,  you  could  find  passages  in  the  Fathers 
so  nearly  corresponding  to  passages  in  the  Apocrypha,  as  those 
of  Barnabas  and  Isaiah,  we  should  not  be  troubled  with  your 
<loubts  :   it  would  bo  no  longer  a  "possible,  nay  a  probable"  mat- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  223 

ter  that  they  were  genuine  quotations  ;  we  should  hear  the  yell 
of  triumph,  the  chuckle  of  delight,  and  the  insulting  tones  of 
defiance.  If,  however,  there  be  the  least  hesitation  in  admitting 
that  Barnabas  quoted  from  Isaiah,  it  is  irresistibly  evident  that 
he  could  not  have  quoted  from  Wisdom.  Instead  then  of  its 
being  so  very  clear  that  the  good  father  "  quotes  in  the  same  sen- 
tence, and  as  of  equal  inspired  authority,  the  book  of  Isaiah  con- 
tained in  the  canon  of  the  Jews,  and  that  of  Wisdom,  one  of 
those  you  boldly  declare  to  be  of  no  more  authority  than  Sene- 
ca's Letters  or  Tully's  Offices,"  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  no 
allusion  is  made  whatever  to  the  Apocryphal  production.  So 
much  for  your  first  effort  to  find  the  Apocrypha  in  the  fathers. 
You  have  begun  your  career  under  inauspicious  omens,  and  I 
apprehend  that  you  will  be  satisfied,  before  this  discussion  is  con- 
cluded, that  an  evil  genius  attends  you,  whom  all  your  sacerdotal 
enchantments  will  prove  unavailing  to  exorcise. 

Your  second  attempt  is  like  unto  your  first.  \n  xix*  of  this 
same  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  a  passage  occurs  which  you  have  dis- 
covered to  be  a  quotation  from  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  (iv. 
28,  31,)  though  you  have  not  been  at  the  pains  in  this  particular 
instance  to  account  for  the  manifest  discrepancies  between  the 
son  of  Sirach  and  the  Father,  by  a  *'  varying  reading'^  of  the 
text.  It  is  never  doubtful  whether  the  Ajwcrypha  were  quoted  ; 
but  as  Papists  have  a  cordial  abhorrence  of  the  Bible,  they  are 

*  The  translation  of  Barnabas  is  as  follows :  "  Thou  shalt  not  be  forward 
to  ppeak  ;  for  the  mouth  is  the  snare  of  death  ;  strive  wiih  thy  soul  for  all  thy 
might.  Reach  not  out  thy  hand  to  receive,  and  withhold  it  not  when  thou 
shouldst  give."     The  originals  are  as  follows: 

Barnabas — Ovk  eijrj  npoyXojjrros  '  naytg  yap  aToixa  Qavarov.  Cfcov  SvvacraL  vnep  rrju 
xpu-^riv  (T)V  ayvevatii.      Al>j    yivov  np      juv  to   )\a3eiv   ckteivov   raj    '^cipas.   ~pos   6c   to 

Ecclesiasticus — Ew?   tov  Ouvutov  vtpi    -tji  ayrjleiac^  Kai  Ki'jOoj  0  Qeog 

TtoAtnr)aF.i  vncp  cm).  ^Jlr]  yipiiv  rpciy^vs  ev  yXiorrnrj  cnv^Kni  vcoOpig  Ktii  irapciiievos  £v 
T  i^ti  (pyoii  crov,  islri  caroi  rj  ■)(£to  auv  EKTtTnnEir]  cii  T.y  Xitj3r.ii',  Kai  ev  to)  aTTOciSovai 
avvtCTCiXjiei  tj. 

The  version  of  Ecclesiasticus  is  in  these  words:  "  Strive  for  juHicc  for  thy 
soul,  and  even  unto  death  fight  for  justice,  and  God  will  overlhrow  thy  enemies 
/'or  (hre.  Be  not  Iiasty  in  thij  tongue;  ar.d  slack  and  lemi.^s  in  thy  works. 
Let  vot  thy  hand  be  stretched  out  to  receive,  and  shut  tchen  thou  shouldst 
give"     \  havp  e^iven  the  TtnUc?  ns  found  in  A.  P.  V.'?  citalidu. 


224'  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

slow  to  discern  quotations  from  the  canon  among  those  whom 

they  honor. 

It  will  be  perceived,  upon  consulting  the  original,  that  your 
translation  of  Barnabas  and  the  Doway  version  of  Ecclesiasticus, 
which  you  have  copied  without  change,  are  neither  of  them  con- 
sistent with  the  original  text.  According  to  you  there  are  three 
coincidences  in  these  passages,  which  show  that  the  one  must 
have  been  taken  from  the  other.  The  first,  which  you  have  ital- 
icized, is  the  exhortation  to  strive ;  but  unfortunately  no  such  ex- 
hortation is  found  in  Barnabas.  The  good  Father  is  insisting 
upon  the  duties  of  benevolence,  charity,  and  temperance,  and  in 
the  passage  before  us  exhorts  his  readers  to  cultivate  chastity, 
even  beyond  the  resources  of  their  natural  strength.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  Greek  that  can,  by  any  possibility,  be  made  to 
correspond  with  the  sentence  in  your  version  :  ''strive  with  thy 
soul  for  all  thy  might  J^ 

The  conjectural  reading  of  Cotelerius,  which  you  seem  to 
have  followed,  vtkq  trfi  ipvyj]q  crov  ayojvsvaeig,  is  liable  to  serious 
objections.  In  the  first  place,  the  word  aycorfvaeig,  which  that 
critic  would  substitute  for  the  received  reading,  ayvsvaeig,  be- 
longs to  no  language  under  the  sun — most  certainly  it  is  not 
Greek — it  is  justified  neither  by  the  usage  of  the  classics,  the 
authors  of  the  Septuagint,  nor  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  legitimaate  word  to  express  the  idea  of  striving,  is  uyoivi^o}. 
In  the  second  place,  the  new  reading  gives  a  sense  wholly  un- 
suited  to  the  connection  in  which  the  passage  is  found.  It  occurs 
among  a  series  of  earnest  exhortations  to  specific  duties.  It  is 
preceded  by  solemn  admonitions  against  severity  to  servants, 
avarice  and  volubility,  and  succeeded  by  directions  equally  defi- 
nite and  precise.  Now  to  introduce  an  abstract  proposition, 
which  covers  a  multitude  of  duties,  in  the  midst  of  specific,  defi- 
nite and  precise  instructions,  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  exceedingly 
awkward.  Tlie  old  reading,  which  makes  the  passage  an  ex- 
hortation to  the  practice  of  chastity,  suits  the  nature  of  the  con- 
text, and,  on  that  account,  is  to  be  decidedly  preferred.  In  the 
third  place,  there  is  no  need  of  emendation.  The  preposition 
seems  to  be  used  in  its  common  acceptation,  when  followed  by 
the  accusative,  of  excess,  and  ipvyr,v  may  be  regarded  as  a  com- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  225 

pendious  expression  for  the  powers  of  the  man.  This  word  is 
frequently  used  to  designate  the  whole-  man,  and  in  such  con- 
nections is  equivalent  to  avd-gmnog,  and  every  Greek  scholar 
knows  that  vjieg  uv&Qoinov  may  be  properly  rendered  "  beyond 
liuman  strength."     (Viger  De  Idiotismis,  c.  9,  §  9,  Reg.  1. 

Turned  into  English,  and  substituting  the  imperative  for  the 
future,  the  passage  in  Barnabas,  upon  which  you  found  your  first 
coincidence,  is  simply  this  :  "  As  far  as  you  are  able,  beyond  your 
strength,  cultivate  chastity."  Employ  not  only  your  natural  re- 
sources— these  alone  are  not  to  be  trusted,  but  seek  a  strength 
beyond  your  own,  even  the  all-sufficient  grace  of  God.  What 
now  in  the  corresponding  passage  says  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach? 
"  Strive  for  truth  even  unto  death  :"  a  marvellous  coincidence 
with  the  exhortation  to  purity  ;  an  extraordinary  quotation,  when 
there  is  not  a  single  word  in  the  two  clauses  alike.  One  is  ex- 
horting to  stability  of  opinion,  and  the  other  to  innocence  of  life. 
The  next  coincidence  is  the  exhortation  in  relation  to  the  tongue. 
In  the  clauses  containing  this  advice,  the  principal  words,  as 
found  in  Greek,  are  widely  different  in  their  meaning.  Barnabas 
uses  a  word  (Ttgo/lojaaog)  which  denotes  excessive  volubility,  and 
he  gives  advice,  therefore,  precisely  similar  to  that  recorded  in 
the  first  chapter  and  nineteenth  verse  of  the  epistle  of  James : 
"  Be  slow  to  speak."  The  son  of  Sirach,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
exhorting  to  rivility  of  speech,  and  uses  expressions  which,  when 
literally  translated,  amount  to  this  :  "  Be  not  rough  with  your 
tono-ue."  The  Latin  version  surely  should  not  supersede  the 
Greek,  and  I  know  of  no  copies  of  the  Septuagint  that  give  the 
reading  laxvg  which  the  Latin  translators  seem  to  have  followed,* 
though  some  copies  do  give  -d-gaavg.  Either  of  these  readings 
harmonizes  exactly  with  the  sL\cceeding  verse  :  "  Be  not  as  a 
lion  in  thy  house  nor  frantic  among  thy  servants."  This  sen- 
tence illustrates  what  he  means  by  being  "  rough-tongued  ;"  it 
is  to  betray  the  fury  and  ferocity  of  the  lion  among  those  who 
arc  dependent  upon  us.     The  coincidence,  then,  in  this  passage 

*  I  say,  seem  to  have  followed,  because  the  phrase  adopted  by  the  Vulgate 
citatus  in  lingua,  is  evidently  susceptible  of  a  rendering  consistent  with  the 
common  reading  :    "  Be  not  violently  excited  in  thy  tongue  or  speech." 

n 


226  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

between  Barnabas  and  Ecclesiasticus,  is  just  the  coincidence  be- 
tween an  admonition  not  to  be  loquacious  or  excessively  talka- 
tive, and  an  admonition  to  overcome  acerbity  of  speech.  One 
says,  in  effect,  "  be  silent,''  the  other  says,  "  be  gentle.''  It  is 
very  obvious  that  the  sentiment  in  Barnabas  was  suggested  by 
the  passage  in  James  upon  the  same  subject. 

The  last  coincidence  which  you  notice,  is  in  reference  to 
what  is  said  of  illiberality  or  avarice;  and  here  I  freely  admit 
that  there  is  a  coincidence  both  of  expression  and  sentiment,  but 
a  coincidence  just  of  that  sort  which  betrays  no  marks  of  design. 
It  is  a  repetition  in  both  cases  of  one  of  those  common  maxims 
which  are  to  be  found  in  all  writers  upon  morals.  The  sentiment 
is  evidently  the  same  with  that  which  Paul  attributes  to  the  Sa- 
viour, in  Acts  XX.  35,  and  which  is  likewise  suggested  by  nu- 
merous passages  in  the  heathen  pages  of  antiquity.  Barnabas 
says,  ''  Extend  not  thy  hand  to  receive — close  it  not  to  give." 
Our  Saviour  says,  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.  In 
almost  precisely  the  same  words,  Artemidorus  says,  "  To  give  is 
better  than  to  receive"  (Oneirocr.  iv.  3).  ^^illian  says,  "  It  is  bet- 
ter to  enrich  others  than  to  be  rich  ourselves"  (H.  V.  xix.  13), 
and  a  similar  sentiment  occurs  in  Aristotle,  Nichom.  iv.  1.* 
Coincidences  of  this  sort,  evidently  show,  that  such  aphorisms 
must  be  regarded  as  the  spontaneous  suggestions  of  the  niind  to 
those  who  observe,  with  the  eye  of  the  moralist,  the  vicissitudes 
of  men  and  manners.  The  same  process  of  thought  by  which 
they  become  the  property  of  one  understanding,  renders  them 
the  possession  of  others.  They  belong  to  those  common  topics 
which,  whoever  attempts  to  discuss,  will,  according  to  Johnson, 
''  find  unexpected  coincidences  of  his  thoughts  with  those  of 
other  writers,"  growing  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  subject, 
and  implying  no  design  to  imitate  or  adopt. 

The  next  passage  with  which  you  favor  us,  is  taken  from  a 
part  of  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp  to  the  Philippians,  which  is  now 
preserved  only  in  a  Latin  translation.     We  cannot  consequently 


*  For  many  striking  illustrations  of  the  same  sentiment  to  be  found  in  va- 
rious authors,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Kuinoel,  Wolfius  and  Wetstein,  on  Acts 
XX.  35. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCrSSED     AMI    REFUTED.  227 

determine  with  certainty,  what  precisely  were  the  words  which 
the  Father  employed.  You  seem  to  be  quite  certain  that  he  had 
his  eye  upon  Tobit  xii.  9 — "  For  alms  delivereth  from  death." 
The  whole  passage  to  which  you  refer  in  Polycarp,  is  in  these 
words:  "  Quum  notestis  benefacere  polite  deferre  :  quia  eZeemo- 
syna  de  morte  liberal.  Omnes  vobis  invicem  subjecti  estote  : 
conversalionem  vestram  irreprehensibilem  habentes  in  gentibus."* 
In  commenting  upon  this  extract,  you  inform  us  that  "  St.  Poly- 
carp, like  St.  Barnabas,  quotes  in  the  same  breath  an  author," 
whom  all  admit  to  be  inspired  (1  Peter  ii.  12),  and  another  whom 
Protestants  reject  (Tob.  xii.  9). 

If  we  admit,  in  the  first  place,  that  Polycarp  quoted  from 
Tobias,  it  will  by  no  means  follow  that  he  regarded  the  book  as 
inspired  or  canonical.  He  simply  accommodates  a  sentence 
which  suited  his  present  purpose,  just  as  Paul  adopted  from  Me- 
nander  the  memorable  aphorism,  "  evil  communications  corrupt 
good  manners."  But,  in  the  second  place,  the  passage  in  Tobit 
is  itself  a  quotation — a  literal  quotation  from  the  tenth  chapter 
and  second  verse  of  the  book  of  Proverbs,  where  it  is  rendered 
in  our  English  version,  "  righteousness  delivereth  from  death." 
The  coincidence  of  the  sentiment  in  the  contexts,  creates  a  pre- 
sumption that  the  one  passage  was  suggested  by  the  other.  Sol- 
omon's context  is,  ''treasures  of  icickedncss  profit  nothing;'' 
and  that  of  Tobit  is,  '*  it  is  better  to  give  alms  than  to  lay  up 
gold''  Solomon  adds,  "  righteousness  delivereth  from  death  ;" 
and  Tobit  adds  that  ''alms  deliver  from  death."  Now  the  He- 
brew word  which  Solomon  employs  for  righteousness  (nj:?'i2£)  is 
not  unfrequently  rendered  by  the  Seventy,  fXei]fiocn'vr}  (alms),  the 
very  word  which  is  found  in  the  Greek  translation  of  this  passage 
of  Tobit.  If,  then,  Tobit  was  originally  written  in  Hebrew,  as 
was  doubtless  the  case,  there  being  Hebrew  copies  extant  in  the 
time  of  Origen,  the  probability  is  that  the  same  word  which 
occurs  in  Proverbs,  was  used  in  this  place.  The  Jews  were  ac- 
customed to  interpret  the  passage  in  Solomon  precisely  as  it  has 

*  The  passage  may  be  thus  translated :  "  When  if.  is  in  your  power  to  do 
good,  defer  it  not,  for  alms  delivereth  from  death.  Be  all  of  you  subject  one  to 
another,  having  your  conversation  honest  among  the  Gentiles." 


228  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

been  rendered  by  the  Greek  translators  of  Tobit  (RosenmuUer 
in  Prov.  x.  2).  Hence,  in  the  original,  this  text  of  Tobit  was  in 
all  probability  an  exact  quotation  from  the  corresponding  text  in 
Proverbs.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  there  are  several  Hebrew 
copies  of  Tobit  extant  at  this  day,  translated,  it  is  generally  sup- 
posed, from  the  Greek.  Two  of  these  have  been  published,  one 
by  Sebastian  Munster,  and  another  by  Paul  Fagius.  Huetius 
possessed  another,  in  manuscript,  differing  somewhat  from  both, 
but  according  more  closely  with  that  of  Munster.  The  editions 
of  Munster  and  Fagius  were  reprinted  in  the  London  Polyglott, 
and  may  be  found  in  the  fourth  volume  of  Walton,  with  the  Latin 
translations  of  these  distinguished  scholars  annexed.  Both  these 
copies,  in  the  passage  before  us,  concur,  literatim  et  pu?ictuati?n, 
with  the  passage  in  Proverbs,  which  is  certainly  a  strong  pre- 
sumption that  Solomon's  Hebrew  and  Tobit's  Greek  (or  rather 
his  translator's)  are  precisely  equivalent. 

Now  the  question  is,  which  did  the  Father  quote,  the  Sep- 
tuagint  translation  of  Solomon,  or  the  Greek  translation  of  To- 
bit, since  both  were  versions  of  the  same  original  ?  Your  answer 
is,  that  he  quoted  Tobit.  How  can  that  be  known  ?  His  own 
Greek  is  lost,  and  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  what  word 
he  used.  If  he  employed  the  term  dixaioavvt]  (righteousness), 
then  Solomon,  as  found  in  the  LXX,  was  quoted  ;  if  he  employed 
eXiri^ocrvvt]  [alms),  then  the  Greek  version  of  Tobit  was  quoted. 
How  shall  we  determine  which  word  was  employed  ?  The  Latin 
translation  affords  no  certain  clew,  since  either  term  might  be 
rendered  eleemosyne,  both  corresponding  as  they  do  to  the  He- 
brew, and  the  one  always,  and  the  other  frequently,  meaning  the 
same  thing  as  eleemosyne. 

Your  next  passage  is  from  the  first  Epistle  of  Clement  to  the 
Corinthians,  which,  you  say,  is  compounded  of  Wisdom  xi.  22 
and  xii.  12. 

There  is,  however,  an  exact  agreement  in  sense,  although  not 
a  verbal  correspondence,  between  this  passage  and  Daniel  iv.  35, 
(32  in  LXX)  and  Burton  is  of  opinion  that  Clement  had  speecially 
in  his  eye,  Isaiah  xlv.  9,  and  Rom.  ix.  19,  20.  The  idea  is  one 
continually  occurring  in  the  canonical  Scriptures,  and  I  think  it 
doubtful   whether  the  Father  had  any  particular  passage  in  his 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  229 

mind  ;  for  his  words  exactly  tally  with  no  one  text  or  combina- 
tion of  texts  in  the  Scriptures.  I  shall  present,  however,  Cle- 
ment, Wisdom,  and  Daniel,  that  the  reader  may  judge  for  him- 
self whether  the  Father  had  not  as  much  reference  to  Daniel  as 
to  Wisdom  ;  and  as,  in  this  case,  I  do  not  object  to  your  transla- 
tion, I  shall  dispense  with  the  original. 

Clement  says:  "Who  shall  say  to  Him,  what  dost  thou,  or 
who  shall  resist  the  power  of  His  strength?" 

Wisdom  :  "  For  who  shall  say  to  thee,  what  hast  thou  done  ; 
and  who  shall  resist  the  strength  of  thy  arm." 

Daniel  says:  "  He  doeth  according  to  His  will,  in  the  army  of 
Heaven  and  among  the  inhabitants  of  earth,  and  none  can  stay 
His  hand,  or  say  unto  Him,  what  dost  thou?" 

The  coincidence  with  Daniel  is  more  striking  from  the  suc- 
ceeding sentence  in  Clement — "  When  He  wills  and  as  He  wills, 
He  has  done  all  things,  and  none  of  His  decrees  shall  pass 
away." 

Your  last  reference  to  the  Apostolic  Fathers  is  peculiarly 
unfortunate.  You  appeal  to  the  abstract  which  Clement  has 
given  us  of  the  history  of  Judith  in  the  fifty-fifth  section  of  his 
epistle,  and  would  insinuate  the  belief  that  there  was  something 
in  the  passage  to  favor  the  idea  that  the  book  was  inspired.  But 
what  is  the  fact?  The  history  of  Judith  is  commended  as  a 
laudable  example  in  the  same  connection  with  the  story  of  CEdi- 
pus,  and  the  heathen  accounts  of  such  devoted  men  as  Codrus, 
Lycurgus,  and  Scipio  Africanus.  A  wonderful  proof  of  inspira- 
tion, truly  !  Clement,  no  doubt,  believed  the  authenticity  of  the 
book,  but  that  is  a  very  different  matter  from  its  divine  inspira- 
tion. The  only  passage  in  the  reference  of  Clement  upon  which 
you  fasten  as  a  quotation  from  Judith,  happens  very  strangely 
not  to  be  one.*     If  you  will  turn  to  the  originals,  you  will  find 

*  I  shall  give  the  whole  passage  as  it  appears  in  Archbishop  Wake's  trans- 
lation : 

"  Nay,  and  even  the  Gentiles  themselves  have  given  us  examples  of  this 
kind :  for  we  read  how  many  Kings  and  Princes,  in  times  of  pestilence,  being 
warned  by  their  oracles,  have  given  up  themselves  unto  death,  that  by  their  own 
blood  they  might  deliver  their  country  from  destruction.  Others  have  forsaken 
their  cities  that  so  they  might  put  an  end  to  the  seditions  of  them.     We  know 


230  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

that  the  words  translated  "  deliver,"  are  very  different  in  Judith 
and  Clement,  and  the  epithet  with  which  Judith  distinguished 
the  Lord  is  omitted  by  the  Father,  and  the  name  of  Holofernes 
is  not  mentioned  in  Judith,  though  it  is  in  Clement.  There  is 
nothing,  I  may  add,  in  the  account  which  Clement  gives  of  Es- 
ther, that  can  be  remotely]  tortured  into  proof  that  he  deemed 
the  Apocryphal  portions  to  be  inspired.  He  appeals  to  her  his- 
tory simply  as  t7'ue,  and  intimates  nothing  of  the  origin  of  the 
book. 

Such  then  are  your  abortive  efforts  to  find  a  tradition  in  the 
Apostolic  Fathers  that  Christ  and  his  apostles  delivered  the  Apoc- 
rypha  to  the  Christian  church  as  the  oracles  of  God.  If  the 
apostles,  in  their  own  writings,  said  nothing  on  the  subject,  this 
is  the  age  and  these  the  men  upon  whom,  according  to  Bellar- 
min  himself,  we  must  rely.  Contemporary  writers  or  the  next 
generation,  this  wily  Jesuit  admits,  are  the  legitimate  witnesses 
of  the  authenticity  of  facts.  Here,  after  the  apostles  had  fallen 
asleep,  and  the  last  of  those  who  had  seen  or  been  taught  by 
them  is  gathered  to  his  fathers,  there  remains  not  a  single  inti- 
mation, not  a  distant  hint,  not  even  a  remote  insinuation,  that 
these  spurious  documents  which  Rome  has  canonized,  are  part 
and  parcel  of  our  faith.  Who  now  shall  tell  us  what  Christ  and 
his  apostles  had  taught?  Who  shall  be  able  to  penetrate  the 
past,  when  the  only  light  which  could  guide  us,  is  withdrawn  for- 
ever ?     What  witnesses  shall  we  evoke,  when  those  alone  who 


how  many  among  ourselves,  have  given  up  themselves  unto  bonds,  that  thereby 
they  might  free  others  from  them  ;  others  have  sold  themselves  into  bondage, 
that  they  might  feed  their  brethren  with  the  price  of  themselves  ;  and  even 
many  women,  being  strengthened  by  the  grace  of  God,  have  done  many  glori- 
ous and  manly  things  on  such  occasions.  The  blessed  Judith,  when  her  city  was 
besieged,  desired  the  Elders  that  they  would  suffer  her  to  go  into  the  camp  of 
their  enemies,  and  she  went  out  exposing  herself  to  danger  for  rhe  love  she  bare 
to  her  country  and  her  people  that  were  besieged  ;  and  the  Lord  delivered  Holo- 
fernes into  the  hands  of  a  woman.  Nor  did  Esther,  being  perfect  in  faith,  ex- 
pose herself  to  any  less  hazard,  for  the  delivery  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  in 
danger  of  being  destroyed  ;  for  by  fasting  and  humbling  herself,  she  entreated 
the  great  Maker  of  all  things,  the  God  of  spirits,  so  that  beholding  the  humility 
of  her  soul,  he  delivered  the  people  for  whose  sake  she  was  in  peril." — Wake'a 
Apostol.  Fathers,  pp.  202-3, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  231 

were  competent  to  testify,  have  kept  the  silence  of  the  grave  ?  It 
is  perfectly  plain  that  if,  up  to  the  commencement  of  the  second 
century,  nothing  is  known  about  any  such  instructions  on  the 
subject  of  the  Apocrypha,  as  you  attribute  to  Christ,  nothing  can 
be  satisfactorily  ascertained  afterwards.  The  witnesses  are  too 
far  removed  from  i\\e  facts.  That  nothing  was  known,  however, 
when  the  last  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  was  called  to  his  reward, 
must  be  assumed  as  true,  until  it  is  proved  to  be  false.  The 
silence  of  these  men  is  death  to  your  cause.  In  vain  have  you 
endeavored  to  make  them  break  that  silence  ;  your  feeble  efforts 
have  only  recoiled  in  deep  and  indelible  disgrace  upon  your  own 
character  as  a  scholar  and  a  critic. 


LETTER    XV. 


The  application  of  such  expressions  as  '  Scripture,'  'Divine  Scripture,'  by  ancient  writers 
to  the  Apocrypha,  no  proof  of  inspiration. 

The  only  plausible  argument,  in  support  of  your  proposition 
that  the  primitive  church  received  the  Apocrypha  as  inspired,  is 
derived  from  the  fact  that  the  early  Fathers,  in  introducing 
quotations  from  these  disputed  books,  not  unfrequently  applied 
to  them  the  same  expressions  with  which  they  were  accustomed 
to  distinguish  the  canonical  records.  Upon  this  point,  as  I  have 
hinted  already,  Bellarmin  principally  dwelt.  He  refers,  as  you 
have  done  in  your  fourth  and  succeeding  letters,  to  passages  of 
the  ancient  writers  in  which  they  not  only  accommodate  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Apocrypha,  but  also  denominate  it  scripture,  some- 
times without  any  qualifying  epithet,  and  sometimes  with  the 
titles,  in  addition,  sacred,  holy,  or  divine.  To  infer  from  a 
circumstance,  like  this,  that  they  regarded  these  works  as  pos- 
sessed of  the  same  authority  with  Moses,  the  Prophets,  and  the 
Psalms,  or  the  acknowledged  compositions  of  the  Apostles  and 
Evangelists,  is  to  be  guilty  of  a  gross  paralogism.  Those  who 
reason  in   this  way,  manifestly  take  for  granted,  that  the   term 


232  ROMANTST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

scripture  is  exslusively  applicable  to  inspired  compositions ;  but 
where  is  the  evidence  of  this  fact  ?  It  is  freely  conceded  that 
this  is  a  common  and  familiar  designation  of  the  canonical 
books,  but  it  by  no  means  follows,  that  it  is  restricted  in  its 
usage  exclusively  to  them.  To  say  that  because  all  inspired 
writings  are  scripture,  therfore  all  scripture  must  also  be  neces- 
sarily inspired,  is  to  assume  as  true,  what  will  be  found,  with  a 
single  exception,  to  be  invariably  false,  that  the  simple  converse 
of  an  universal  affirmative  proposition  is  equivalent  to  the 
original  statement.  Your  reasoning,  if  I  understand  it,  is  this  : 
the  primitive  church  believed  the  Apocrypha  to  be  inspired, 
because  the  Fathers  quoted  them  as  scripture, — and  all  scripture 
must  be  inspired,  because  all  books  confessedly  inspired,  are 
denominated  scripture.  This  burlesque  upon  logic  cannot  be 
more  happily  illustrated  than  by  a  parallel  case.  He  who  should 
ascribe  to  the  beasts  of  the  field  the  distinctive  excellences  of 
men,  because  beasts  and  men  are  alike  said  to  be  subject  to 
decay,  would  reason  precisely  as  you  do  in  deducing  the  Divine 
authority  of  the  books  in  question,  from  the  application  to  them 
of  the  same  titles  which  are  given  to  the  sacred  canon.  When 
your  argument  is  stated  in  the  form  of  syllogism — which,  after 
all,  is  the  real  test  of  conclusive  reasoning — it  will  be  found  to 
contain  the  miserable  fallacy  of  an  undistributed  middle. 

The  inspired  books  are  called  scripture ;  the  Apocrypha  are 
called  scripture;  therefore  the  Apocrypha  are  inspired.  Before 
you  were  at  liberty  to  draw  the  triumphant  conclusion*  which 
you  seem  to  think  you  have  legitimately  reached,  it  was  evi- 
dently incumbent  upon  you  to  prove,  (for  this  was  the  major 
proposition  which  the  case  required,)  that  whatever  is  called 
scripture,  or  Divine  scripture,  must  have  been  written  under  the 
supernatural  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  is  unquestionably 
the  basis  of  your  argument ;  and  in  pity  to  the  cause  which  you 
had  undertaken  to  sustain,  you  should  have  placed  it  upon 
grounds  less  treacherous  and  deceitful  than  its  beinor  the  con- 
verse  of  a  statement  universally  acknowledged  to  be  true.  Why, 
therefore,  did  you  not  manfully  meet  the  point,  and  prepare  the 
way  for  your  multiplied  quotations,  by  showing,  at  the  outset, 
what  is  certainly  far  from  evident,  that  scripture  and  inspiration 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  233 

were  coextensive  in  their  import?  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable 
that  you  should  have  expended  so  much  labor  in  evincing  that 
the  Apocrypha  were  often  characterized  by  this  appellation, 
and  yet  have  passed  in  profound  silence  the  other  proposition 
which  was  equally  important,  that  all  books  so  denominated 
must  be  inspired.  Believe  me,  sir,  it  was  a  most  unfortunate 
oversight ;  it  leaves  your  conclusion  halting  upon  a  single 
premiss  :  about  as  good  a  support  as  a  solitary  crutch  to  a  man 
destitute  of  legs.  All  that  your  extracts  are  capable  of  proving, 
may  be  fully  granted  ;  that  the  books  in  question  were  often 
distinguished  by  the  title  of  scripture;  but  it  is  abroad  leap 
from  an  ambiguous  expression  of  this  sort,  to  the  conclusion 
which  you  have  collected.  There  are  several  considerations 
which  indisputably  show  that  such  appellations  as  scripture, 
divine  scripture,  &c.,  were  generic  terms,  as  used  among  the 
Fathers,  having  a  much  larger  extension  than  your  argument 
seems  to  suppose.  While  they  included  as  a  part  of  their  mean- 
ing those  works  which  were  acknowledged  to  be  the  offspring  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  they  were  also  applied  to  other  departments  of 
composition,  in  which  no  other  spirit  was  conceived  to  predom- 
inate but  the  spirit  of  devotion.  Scripture  itself  is  synonymous 
with  writing,  and  is,  consequently,  an  appropriate  term  for 
designating  any  thing  recorded  with  the  pen.  The  epithets, 
sacred,  holy,  and  divine,  not  unfrequently  imply  what  is  suited 
to  produce,  to  stimulate  or  quicken  the  devout  affections  of  the 
heart;  and  the  whole  phrase,  divine  scripture,  ^vas  employed 
among  the  ancients  to  denote  that  peculiar  class  of  composition, 
which  we  denominate  religious,  in  opposition  to  profane.  Even 
in  our  own  tongue,  the  word  scripture,  contrary  to  its  present 
acceptation,  was  used  among  the  earlier  writers  with  a  latitude 
of  meanincr  analocrous  to  that  which  obtained  in  the  lanoruao;e 
from  which  it  was  derived.  It  was  not  only  applied  to  any 
written  document  whatever,  whether  sacred  or  profane,  but  was 
even  extended  to  inscriptions  on  a  tomb.*  The  Greek  word 
/Q(x(pr}  was,  perhaps,  more  general  than  the  English  term  icriting, 
as   it  embraced   not  only  the  work   of  the   scribe,  but  the  per- 

*  See  Richardson's  Dictionary,  word  Fcriptiire. 
II* 


234  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

formance  of  the  painter.  We  are  so  accustomed,  however,  to 
the  definite  and  restricted  application  of  the  word  scripture,  and 
particularly  the  plural,  scriptures,  to  the  inspired  records  of  our 
faith,  that  we  experience  no  little  difficulty  in  divesting  ourselves 
of  this  association,  when  the  term  is  mentioned,  and  in  going 
back  to  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  an  age  when  it  suggested 
nothing  so  peculiar,  emphatic,  and  precise.  The  Christian  Fa- 
thers themselves  seem  to  have  labored  under  a  measure  of  em- 
barrassment in  selecting,  from  the  general  and  extensive  phrases 
which  were  best  adapted  to  the  purpose,  appropriate  titles  of 
distinction  and  respect  for  the  sacred  volume.  If  there  had 
been  any  one  phrase  which  the  usage  of  the  language  would 
have  authorized  them  to  adopt  as  a  specific  and  exclusive  name 
for  their  inspired  documents,  they  would  hardly  have  accumu- 
lated so  many  titles  as  are  found  scattered  through  their  writings. 
The  definite  word  would  have  been  uniformly,  at  least  generally, 
adopted.  But  no  such  definite  appellation  existed,  and  they 
were  obliged  to  employ  generic  terms  in  a  peculiar  and  em- 
phatic sense,  when  they  appealed  to  their  rule  of  faith.  Some- 
times the  sacred  canon  was  denominated  the  Holy  Scriptures  ; 
sometimes  the  Oracles  of  the  Lord  ;  sometimes  Divine  Scriptures, 
Divine  Oracles,  Divinely  Inspired  Scriptures,  Scriptures  of  the 
Lord,  the  True  Evangelical  Canon,  the  Old  and  New  Testament, 
the  Ancient  and  New  Scriptures,  the  Ancient  and  New  Oracles, 
Books  of  the  Spirit,  Divine  Fountains,  Fountains  of  the  Divine 
Fulness.*  In  this  abundance  of  phrases,  and  only  a  part  is  given, 
there  is  an  obvious  effort  to  convey  a  precise  idea  by  terms 
which  were  felt  to  be  general  ;  a  constant  endeavor  to  limit,  in  a 
particular  case,  what,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  language, 
was  susceptible  of  a  larger  extension.  Hence,  while  it  is  true 
that  such  phrases  were  pre-eminently  applied  to  the  word  of  God, 
we  must  know  that  a  given  book  is  the  word  of  God  before  we 
can  determine  whether  these  titles  are  bestowed  on  it  in  the 
restricted  and  emphatic  sense,  or  in  their  usual  and  wider  signi- 
fication.    That  the  Fathers  were  accustomed  to  use  them   in 

*  See  a  collection  of  these  titles  in  Paley's  Evidences  of  Christianity,  pt.  i. 
chap.  9.  ^ 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  235 

both  applications,  it  requires  but  little  acquaintance  with  their 
writings  to  be  assured. 

Eusebius  testifies  that  Irenaeus,  whom  you  have  represented 
as  endorsing  the  Apocrypha,  cited  as  scripture  one  of  the  weak- 
est performances  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity — the  Shepherd  of  Her- 
mas.  His  words  are  worthy  of  being  fully  exhibited  :  "  Nor  did 
he  (IrensBus)  only  know,  but  he  also  receives  the  scripture  of 
the  shepherd,  saying:  Well  therefore  spake  the  scrzp^z/re,  which 
says:  'First  of  all,  believe  there  is  one  God,  who  created  and 
formed  all  things,  and  what  follows.'  "*  Here  it  is  evident,  that 
scripture  means  only  a  written  document,  and  has  no  reference 
whatever  to  any  impression  of  supernatural  origin.  The  mean- 
ing of  Irenneus,  as  Lardner  very  justly  expounds  it,t  is  exactly 
this  :  *'  Well  spake  that  writing,  work  or  book,  which  says."  "  It 
is  certain,"  continues  the  author  of  the  credibility,  "  that  Iren- 
aeus himself  had  so  used  this  word  /gucfi]  or  scripture."  Giving 
an  account  of  the  Epistle  of  Clement,  written  to  the  Corinthians 
in  the  name  of  the  church  of  Rome,  he  says  :  "  The  church  of 
Rome  sent  a  most  excellent  scripture  (that  is,  Epistle)  to  the 
Corinthians."  And  afterwards,  "  from  that  scripture  one  may 
learn  the  Apostolical  tradition  of  the  church."  Eusebius  himself 
uses  the  term  ejiiaioh]  as  synonymous  with  yoacfri.  "  Polycarp," 
says  he,  "  in  his  scripture  to  the  Philippians,  still  extant,  has 
made  use  of  certain  testimonies  taken  from  the  first  Epistle  of 
Peter."!  Among  the  Apocryphal  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
which  he  utterly  rejects  from  any  reastmable  claim  to  inspired 
authority,  he  mentions  the  scripture  of  the  acts  of  Paul.  Clemens^ 
of  Alexandria,^  who  figures  largely  in  your  pages,  applies  the 
term  scriptures  to  the  compositions  of  the  heathen  authors,  with 
which  Ptolemy  adorned  his  library,  as  well  as  to  the  sacred  and 
canonical  books. ||  V* 

If  the  word  were  not  confessedly  general  and  indefinite,  no- 
thinir  could  be  inferred  from  it  as  a  term  of  reference,  after  the 
Apocrypha  had  become  incorporated  into  the  sacred  volume,  and 
but  few  references  were  made  to  them  before,  and  had  begun  to 


*  H.  E.  lib.  V.  c.  8.  t  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  186  (London  Ed.  1831). 

t  IT.  E.  lib.  iv.  c.  14.  '  ^  H.  E.  lib.  iii.  c.  25.  |I  Sti»m.  1. 


236  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

be  used  as  a  means  of  instruction  in  the  congregations  of  the 
faithful.  They  would  naturally  receive  the  same  titles  which 
belonged  to  the  collection  as  a  whole.  The  name  of  the  volume 
would  be  adopted  for  the  convenience  of  citation,  and  nothing 
could  be  deduced  from  a  quotation  of  this  sort,  but  the  existence 
of  the  book  in  the  specified  volume. 

Nothing  is  added  to  the  strength  of  the  argument  by  citing 
passages  from  the  Fathers  in  which  the  Apocrypha  are  denom.i- 
nated  sacred  or  divine  scripture.  To  say  nothing  of  the  fact 
that  such  quotations  occur,  for  the  most  part,  after  the  custom 
to  which  allusion  has  just  been  made  obtained  extensive  preva- 
lence, there  is  abundant  evidence  that  this,  and  equivalent  phra- 
seology, were  often  employed  to  convey  the  idea  o^ religious  lit- 
erature. Divine  scripture,  in  numerous  instances,  means  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing  as  an  '''edifying  book,''  or  a  composition 
upon  religious  subjects.  Dionysius,  surnamed  the  Areopagite, 
quoting  a  passage  from  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,  styles  him  the 
Divine  Ignatius.*  Polycrates,  the  metropolitan  Bishop  of  Ephe- 
sus,  said  of  Melito,  that  "  he  was  governed  in  ail  things  by  the  Holy 
Ghost. "t  Cyril,  appealing  to  a  decree  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  calls 
it  a  divine  and  most  holy  oracle,  and  speaks  of  its  decisions  as 
divinely  inspired. |  Melchior  Canus  admits  that  Innocent  III. 
pronounced  the  words  of  Augustine  to  be  holy  scripture,  just  as 
the  Pontifical  laws  are  called  holy  to  distinguish  them  from  the 
statutes  of  Princes. §  So,  too,  the  decrees  of  councils  and  ihe  de- 
cisions of  the  church  were  called  holy  and  divine,  because  they 
related  to  the  subject  of  religion. 

But  what  places  it  beyond  all  doubt,  that  the  honorable  epi- 
thets with  which  the  Fathers  adorn  the  Apocrypha  were  not  in- 
tended to  convey  the  idea  of  inspiration,  is,  that  in  some  instan- 
'^    ces  those  very  writers  who  reject  them  fi-om  the  canon,  yet  quote 
/  them  under  the  same  titles.     Origen,  who  in  professedly  enumer- 
^  ating  the  books  which  constituted  the  rule  of  faith,  excluded  the 
■    Apocrypha  from  the  canon,  did  not  scruple  to  refer  to  the  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon  and  of  Sirach,  to  the  books  of  Maccabees,  Tobit, 

*  De  Div.  Nom.  cap.  iv.  !ect.  9.  t  Euseb.  H.  E.  lib.  v.  c.24. 

X  De  Trinjtnt.  lib.  i.  §  Rainold,  C'ensuva  Librovnni  Apooiy.  vol.  i.  p.  67. 


APOCRYPHA  DISCUSSED  AND  REFUTED,  237 

and  Judith,  as  scriptures  or  the  divine  word  {&siog  Xoyog)*  Je- 
rome, whose  testimony  is  as  explicit  as  language  can  make  it, 
cites  a  passage  from  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  and  calls  it  di- 
vine scripture.i  Now  when  we  compare  his  statement  concern- 
ing this  book  and  that  of  Wisdom,  that  they  should  be  read  for 
popular  edification  in  life  and  manners,  and  not  for  the  establisliing 
of  any  doctrine  in  the  church,  we  understand  at  once  what  mean- 
ing to  attach  to  his  laudatory  notice  of  Ecclesiasticus.  Epi-  i 
phanius,  as  Bellarmin  admits,  acknowledged  no  books  but  those 
which  were  found  in  the  Hebrew  canon,  and  Rome  herself 
does  not  pretend  that  the  apostolical  constitutions  are  the  inspired 
word  of  God.  Yet,  Epiphanius  quotes  them  as  Divine  scrip- 
ture,\  a  clear  and  triumphant  proof  that  this  phrase  was  by  no 
means  equivalent  to  inspired  writings.  One  of  the  clearest  pas- 
sages for  illustrating  the  meaning  of  this  phrase,  is  found  in  his 
disputation  against  JEtius.§  He  there  enumerates  the  books 
which  constitute  the  Hebrew  canon,  then  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament;  and  having  completed  his  account  of  the  books 
that  were  inspired,  he  mentions  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  and 
such  like  books  as  Divine  scriptures.  His  object  was  to  show 
that  iEiius  could  defend  his  heresies  neither  from  the  books 
which  the  church  admitted  as  inspired,  nor  from  those  other  writ- 
ings upon  religious  subjects  which  were  allowed  to  be  read  for 
the  purpose  of  personal  improvement.  The  very  structure  of 
the  passage  shows  that  he  made  a  marked  distinction  between 
the  Apocrypha  and  canonical  books,  though  both  were  equally 
denominated  Divine  scripture.  Cyprian,  too,  quotes  the  Apoc- 
rypha as  sacred  scripture,  but  at  the  same  time  he  shows  une- 
quivocally that  he  did  not  regard  them  as  an  authoritative  stand- 
ard of  faith.  Havino;  on  one  occasion  cited  a  sentence  from  the 
book  ofTobit,  he  proceeds  to  conjinn  it  by  the  ^^  testimony  o^ 
truth,''  that  is,  by  a  passage  from  the  Acts  of  jhe  Apostles,  a  ca- 
nonical book,  evidently  implying,  that  though  the  Apocrypha 
were  Divine  scripture,  they  were  not  on  that  account,  the  word 
of  God.  II  This  same  Father  also  cites  the  third  and  fourth  books  of 

*  De  Princip.  ii.  1,  opp.  1,  p.  79.     Conf.  Cels.  viii.  opp.  1.  p.  778,  &c. 

t  Epist.  34  ad  Julian.  I  Hteres  bO. 

(^  H feres  75.  Cont.  Mi.  \\   De  Oper.  et  Elootiios. 


238  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Esdras ;  and  the  argument  is  just  as  strong  that  he  regarded  them 
as  inspired,  though  Rome  rejects  them,  as  it  is  in  favor  of  the 
books  in  question. 

There  is  another  circumstance  which,  to  my  mind,  settles 
the  matter,  that  the  ancients  used  the  expressions  which  they 
apply  to  the  Apocrypha,  without  intending  to  commend  those 
documents  as  inspired.  They  make  a  distinction  in  the  authority 
which  was  due  to  books  that  they  expressly  honored  as  Divine. 
It  is  evident,  that  ail  truly  inspired  writings,  Trent  itself  being 
witness,  must  be  received  with  equal  veneration  and  piety. 
There  may  be  a  difference  in  the  value  of  the  truths  which  are 
communicated  in  different  books,  but  there  can  be  no  difference 
in  authority  when  all  proceed  from  the  Father  of  lights,  with 
whom  is  no  variableness  neither  shadow  of  turning.  Inspiration 
secures  a  complete  exemption  from  error,  and  the  Divine  testi- 
mony is  entitled  to  the  same  consideration  whether  it  be  inter- 
posed to  establish  a  primary  or  a  secondary  principle.  When- 
ever God  speaks,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  subject  on  which 
He  chooses  to  address  us,  His  voice  is  entitled  to  absolute  obe- 
dience, and  we  arelas  much  bound  to  believe  what  seems  in  itself 
to  be  of  subordinate  importance  when  He  proclaims  it,  as  we  are  to 
receive  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.  All  inspired  scripture, 
therefore,  stands  on  the  same  footing  of  authority.*    When,  there- 


*  This  is  well  expressed  by  Bishop  Marsh,  Comp.  View,  p.  90.  His  words 
are  as  follows : 

"  But  it  is  really  absurd  to  talk  of  a  medium  between  canonical  and  unca- 
nonical,  or  of  degrees  of  canonicity.  Let  us  ask,  what  the  church  of  England 
understands  by  a  canonical  book.  This  question  is  answered  in  the  sixth  ar- 
ticle. It  is  a  book  to  which  we  may  appeal  in  confirmation  of  doctrines.  It 
belongs  to  the  canon,  or  to  the  rule  of  faith.  And  the  very  same  explanation 
is  given  in  the  corresponding  decree  of  the  council  of  Trent,  namely  :  that 
which  passed  at  the  fourth  session.  For,  after  an  enumeration  of  the  books 
called  sacred  and  canonical,  (sacri  et  canonici,)  the  decree  concludes  with  the 
observation,  that  the  authorities  above  stated  are  those  which  the  council  pro- 
poses to  use  in  confirmation  of  doctrines  (in  confirmandis  dogmatibus).  Every 
book,  therefore,  must  either  he,  or  not  be,  acknowledged  as  a  work  of  authority 
for  the  establishment  of  doctrines.  Between  its  absolute  rejection  and  its  ab- 
solute admission,  there  is  no  medium.  When  the  question  relates  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  doctrines,  a  book  must  have /uZ/  authority  for  that  purpose,  or  its 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  239 

fore,  a  writer  treats  one  book  as  of  less  authority  than  another,  it 
is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  subordinate  book  is  not  inspired. 
Now  the  Fathers  did  treat  books  which  they  pronounced  to  be 
sacred  and  Divine,  as  of  inferior  authority,  and,  therefore,  sacred 
and  Divine  with  them  must  have  been  something  very  different  « 
from  inspiration.  Junilius,  in  his  Treatise  de  Partibus  Divinae  ^ 
Legis,  in  speaking  of  the  "  authority  of  the  Divine  books,"  ex- 
pressly declares  that  "  some  are  possessed  of  perfect  authority, 
some  middle,  and  some,  of  none  at  all."  It  is  impossible  that 
any  Christian  man,  who  had  the  least  reverence  for  the  testimony 
of  God,  could  say  of  what  He  had  revealed  by  His  Spirit,  that  it 
possessed  no  authority  at  all.  And  yet  Junilius,  a  Christian  bish- 
op in  the  sixth  century,  asserts  this  of  books,  which,  in  his  day, 
were  received  as  holy  and  Divine.  The  conclusion  is  unavoida- 
ble, that  in  such  connections,  these  words  mean  something  very 
different  from  inspired. 

The  testimony  of  Augustine  is  equally  explicit  in  the  matter. 
He  was  a  member  of  that  council  of  Carthage  which  is  sup- 
posed to  have  canonized  the  Apocryphal  books,  and  of  course 
received  them  as  Divine  scripture.  Speaking  of  the  books  of 
Maccabees,  however,  he  justifies  their  reception  by  the  church, 
chiejly  on  account  of  the  moral  tendency  of  the  history.*  It  is  plain 

authority  is  worth  nothing.  And  hence,  the  council  of  Trent,  very  consistently, 
ascribed  equal  authority  to  them  all.  No  writer,  therefore,  belonging  to  the 
church  of  Rome,  could  represent  their  authority  as  unequal,  wiihowt  impugning 
that  decree  of  the  council  of  Trent." 

To  the  same  purport  is  the  following  declaration  of  Lindanus  in  Panoplia 
Evang.  as  quoted  by  Rainold,  Cens.  Lib.  Apoc.  vol.  i.  p.  203. 

"  Eos  impio  se  sacrilegio  contaminare,  qui  in  Scripturarum  Christianarum 
corpore,quosdam  quasi  gradus  authoritatis  conantur  locare  quodunam,eandem- 
que  spiritus  sancti  vocem  impio  humanac  stultitia?  discerniculo  audent  in  varias 
impares  discerpere  ac  distribuere  authoritatis  classes." 

They  pollute  themselves  with  impious  sacrilege,  who  attempt  to  establish,  in 
the  body  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  certain  diflerent  degrees  of  authority. 
That  one  and  the  same  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit  they  dare,  by  impious,  petty 
distinctions  of  human  folly,  to  distribute  into  various  and  unequal  classes  of 
authority. 

*  Augustine  says :  "  Hanc  Scripturam  quae  appellatur  Macchabaeorum.non 
habent  Judaei  sicut  Legem  et  Prophetaset  Psalmos  quibus  Dominus  testimonium 
perhibit.     Sed  rccepta  est  ab  ecclesia  non  inutiliter,  si  sobrie  legatur  et  audiatur, 


240  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

that  he  could  not  have  regarded  them  as  inspired,  since  their* 
inspiration  would  have  been  the  strongest  of  all  possible  reasons 
for  receiving  them.  He  receives  them  only  because  they  might 
be  profitably  7-ead  and  heard,  and  they  were  Divine  in  no  other 
sense  than  as  being  subservient  to  the  purpose  of  edification  and 
improvement. 

As,  now,  such  phrases  as  Divine  scripture  are  confessedly 
ambiguous,  as  a  meaning  may  be  put  upon  them  justified  by  the 
nature  of  the  words  and  by  ancient  usage,  quite  distinct  from 
that  of  inspiration ;  it  certainly  devolves  upon  those  who  adduce 
the  adoption  of  such  expressions  by  the  ancient  Fathers  as  sus- 
taining the  decision  of  the  council  of  Trent,  to  prove  unanswer- 
ably that  Divine  scripture  and  inspired  scripture  are  uniformly 
used  as  synonymous  terms  by  the  early  writers,  or  their  whole  ar- 
gument falls  to  the  ground.  It  is  one  thing  to  assert  that  books 
are  Divine,  in  the  sense  that  they  may  be  profitably  read  or  de- 
voutly studied ;  it  is  quite  another  to  affirm  that  their  authors 
wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  issue  betwixt  us  and  Rome  is  on  the  point  of  inspira- 
tion. She  affirms  that  God  is  the  author  of  these  books,  and  we 
deny  it.  The  question  is  not  whether  the  primitive  churches 
read  them  or  not,  whether  the  early  Fathers  quoted  them  or  not, 
or  whether  they  regarded  them  as  instructive  or  not,  or  whether 
they  pronounced  them  Divine  or  not ;  the  question  is,  was  God 
their  author?  And  while  this  is  the  issue,  the  Romanist  only 
exposes  himself  and  his  cause  to  contempt,  by  elaborate  proofs 
of  what  no  Protestant  would  deem  it  of  any  importance  to  dis- 
pute with  him. 

It  would  be  well  for  you  to  bear  in  mind,  what  you  will  find 
strikingly  illustrated  in  the  offices  of  Tully,*  the  marked  differ- 
ence between  the  looseness  of  popular  language  and  the  accura- 
cy of  scientific  disquisition.  As  the  primitive  church  entertain- 
ed no  doubts  of  the  exclusive   claims  of  the   Hebrew  canon,  as 


maxime  propter  illos  Macchabfeos  qui  pro  Dei  lege  sicut  veri  martyres  a  perse- 
cutoribus  tam  indigna  atque  horrenda  perpessi  sunt." — Cant.  Gaudent.  Donat. 
Lib.  1.  C.31. 

*  De--Ofr.  lib.  ii.  c.  10. 


/ 

APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  241 

this  was  a  settled  matter,  there  was  no  danger  of  being  misunder- 
stood in  employing  words  in  a  general  sense,  which  had  a  pecu- 
liar and  emphatic  application  only  to  a  particular  class  of  books. 
They  were  not  likely  to  mislead,  any  more  than  to  cite  the 
Apocrypha  now  as  belonging  to  the  Old  Testament,  would  be 
construed  into  a  recognition  of  their  Divine  authority,  or  to  speak 
of  Watts,  Hervey,  Owen  and  Newton  as  holy  men,  illustrious  di- 
vines and  spiritual  writers,  would  be  regarded  as  tantamount  to  the 
assertion  that  they  were  supernaturally  inspired.  All  the  epithets 
with  which  we  distinguish  the  sacred  scriptures  have  a  loose 
and  popular  as  well  as  a  strict  and  scientific  sense  ;  and  hence, 
the  mere  use  of  the  words  determines  nothing  as  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  writings.  An  argument  constructed  upon  this  founda- 
tion, would  prove  too  much  even  for  Rome  :  it  would  authorize 
Barnabas,  Clement,  Ignatius,  the  Apocryphal  book  of  Isaiah,  the 
book  of  Henoch,  and  the  third  and  fourth  books  of  Esdras,  the 
writings  of  Augustine,  the  canons  of  councils  and  the  decrees  of 
Popes,  to  claim  a  place  in  the  same  category  with  Moses,  the 
Prophets,  the  Psalms,  Evangelists  and  Apostles.  All  these  re- 
jected documents  were  quoted  by  the  Fathers,  quoted  distinctly 
as  scripture,  in  some  instances,  as  Divine  scripture,  and  what  is 
still  more  remarkable  as  Divinely  inspired  scripture'.  This  is  the 
language  which  Nicholas*  employs  in  regard  to  the  Fathers,  and 
which  Cyrilf  applies  to  the  council  of  Nice. 

It  may  be,  therefore,  regarded  as  indisputably  settled,  that 
Divine  scripture,  and  such  like  expressions,  were  not  equivalent 
to  ^proper  name  for  the  canonical  books. 

If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  ascertain  what  were  the  sentiments 
of  the  primitive  church  in  relation  to  the  extent  of  the  canon,  we 
must  appeal  to  more  definite  sources  of  information,  than  a  col- 
lection of  passages  which  may  be  just  as  accurately  interpreted 
to  mean  that  the  disputed  books  were  religious  in  opposition  to 
profane,  as  that  they  were  inspired  in  opposition  to  human. 
Loose  and  popular  expressions  are  not  the  proper  materials  for 
an  argument  of  this  sort.     Incidental  statements,  occasionally 

*  Epist.  ad  Michirl.  Imp.  (Rainold.  vol.  i.  p.  201.) 
t   De  Trinitate,  Lib.  i.  (Rainold.  vol.  i.  p.  201.) 


242  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

dropped  in  the  midst  of  discourses  upon  other  matters,  do  not 
constitute  the  testimony  of  the  primitive  church.  That  should, 
manifestly,  be  sought  in  those  places  of  the  ancient  writers,  in 
which  they  were  'professedly  treating  of  the  standard  of  faith, 
and  avow  it  as  tJieh  design  to  set  forth  the  books  which  were  re- 
ceived as  supernaturally  inspired.  We  have  numerous  passages 
in  which  these  books  are  the  subject  of  discussion  ;  we  have  di- 
vers catalogues,  made  by  different  writers  and  at  different  times, 
during  the  first  four  centuries,  of  all  the  documents  which  the 
church  received  as  the  rule  of  faith,  in  different  forms  and  un- 
der different  circumstances;  the  whole  matter  is  repeatedly 
brought  before  us,  we  have  line  upon  line,  precept  on  precept, 
here  a  little  and  there  a  little  ;  and  in  such  passages,  and  such  pas- 
sages alone,  I  insist  upon  it,  is  the  testimony  of  the  primitive 
church  to  be  sought.  In  those  parts  of  the  Patristical  remains 
where  it  is  the  express  purpose  of  the  writer  to  declare  what 
books  were  believed  to  be  of  God,  we  may  expect  precision,  ac- 
curacy and  care.  The  witness  is  put  upon  the  stand,  answers, 
as  it  were,  under  oath,  and  guards  his  phraseology,  provided  he 
be  honest,  so  as  to  convey  an  adequate  impression  of  the  truth. 
The  astronomer  speaks  in  popular  language  of  the  sun's  rising 
and  setting,  and  pursuing  his  course  through  the  heavens,  and  yet 
it  would  be  preposterous  to  charge  him  with  denying  the  elemen- 
tary principles  of  his  science  or  teaching  a  system  that  has  long 
been  exploded,  because  he  had  employed  expressions,  which, 
though  sufficiently  exact  for  the  ordinary  intercourse  of  life, 
were  not  philosophically  precise.  So,  in  a  loose  and  familiar  ac- 
ceptation, the  primitive  Fathers  speak  of  the  Apocrypha,  as  Di- 
vine scripture,  intending  to  convey  no  other  idea  but  that  they 
belonged  to  a  class  of  religious  literature,  and  might  be  profita- 
bly studied  for  personal  improvement,  and  it  is  equally  preposter- 
ous from  such  general  expressions,  to  infer  that  they  taught  the 
supernatural  inspiration  of  the  books.  For  the  real  opinions  of 
the  astronomer,  you  would  appeal  to  his  language  when  he  was 
professedly  treating  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  then  you  would  ex- 
pect him  to  weigh  his  words,  to  avoid  the  looseness  of  popular 
discourse,  and  to  employ^no  terms  which  were  not  sufficiently 
just.     So  for  the  rr«/ opinions  of  the  Fathers  upon  the  subject  of 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  243 

the  canon,  we  should  appeal  to  their  statements  when  they  pro- 
fessedly give  us  an  accurate  account  or  formal  catalogue  of  the 
inspired  works.  Then  we  should  expect  them  to  use  terms 
in  a  strictly  scientific  sense;  and  if,  in  such  connections,  i\\^. 
Apocrypha  were  ever  introduced  as  a  part  of  the  word  of  God, 
there  would  be  something  like  testimony  in  behalf  of  the  preten- 
sions of  Rome.  But  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that,  in  every  case 
in  which  the  ancient  writers  used  the  terms  scripture,  and 
Divine  scripture,  in  their  restricted  and  emphatic  application,  in 
all  instances  in  which  they  are  professedly  treating  of  the  canon 
of  inspiration,  they  never  extend  them  to  the  Apocrypha.  In 
none  of  the  catalogues  which  they  have  given  us  of  the  books 
which  God  has  graciously  imparted  as  the  rule  of  faith,  are  these 
spurious  records  to  be  found.  The  voice  of  Christian  antiquity 
accords  with  the  voice  of  the  Jewish  church,  and  both  combine 
to  condemn  the  arrogance  and  blasphemy  of  Trent. 

Nothing,  sir,  can  reveal  more  clearly  the  desperate  extremi- 
ties to  which  you  are  driven  in  support  of  a  sinking  cause,  than 
that,  instead  of  giving  those  plain,  pointed  and  direct  statements 
which  the  Fathers  themselves  intended  to  be,  and  which  common 
sense  suggests  must  be,  their  testimony  upon  the  subject,  you 
hunt  up  and  down  through  all  the  remains  of  antiquity,  and  pre- 
serve your  soul  from  absolute  despair  by  seizing,  here  and  there, 
upon  a  few  popular  expressions,  which,  by  being  tortured  into  a 
special  and  restricted  sense,  may  be  made  to  look  with  some  de- 
gree of  favor  on  your  claims.  You  never  seem  to  be  aware  of 
the  egregious  absurdity  of  bending  the  accurate  to  the  loose,  in- 
stead of  the  loose  to  the  accurate.  Upon  the  same  principle,  if 
you  should  meet  with  a  passage  in  the  private  and  confidential 
letter  of  a  man  of  science,  in  which  he  employed  the  lanoruage 
of  the  vulgar,  you  would  at  once  construe  it  into  the  true  expo- 
sition of  his  system,  and  make  his  philosophical  treatises  succumb 
to  his  popular  expressions. 

There  is  an  apparent  discrepancy,  and  that  must  be  reconciled 
by  torturing  philosophy  and  dignifying  the  dialect  of  the  vulgar. 

If,  sir,  there  existed  an  apparent  inconsistency  between  the 
statements  of  a  witness,  publicly  given,  when  he  stood  forth  in 
the  face  of  the  world    to  make  his  deposition,  and  incidental  ex- 


244  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

pressions,  touching  the  matter  in  dispute,  dropped  from  him  in  the 
course  of  conversation  upon  other  subjects,  would  you  feel  bound, 
if  you  regarded  him  as  a  man  of  veracity  who  would  not  really 
contradict  himself,  to  explain  his ^rq/essec? testimony  by  hisloose 
conversation,  or  to  reconcile  his  loose  conversation  with  his  pro- 
fessed testimony  1  Which  would  you  regard  as  the  standard  by 
which  the  other  was  to  be  measured  ?  Which,  in  other  words, 
would  be  what  might  be  properly  called  his  testimony  1  It  is 
certainly  the  dictate  of  common  sense  to  explain  the  loose  by  the 
accurate. 

Cicero,  in  one  of  his  philosophical  treatises,  in  conformity 
with  the  example  of  illustrious  predecessors,  maintained  that  he 
who  possessed  one  of  the  virtues  must  necessarily  possess  them 
all.  In  a  popular  work,  he  subsequently  remarked  that  a  man 
might  be  just  without  being  prudent.  Here  appeared  to  be  a 
discrepancy,  and  upon  your  principles  of  criticism,  the  true 
method  of  explaining  it  was  to  deny  that  he  held  prudence  to  be 
a  virtue.  The  philosopher,  however,  has  solved  the  difficulty 
himself,  by  assuring  us  that  there  was  no  real  inconsistency, 
since,  in  the  one  case,  the  terms  were  employed  with  precision 
and  accuracy,  and  in  the  other,  with  popular  laxness.  "  Alia  est 
ilia,"  says  he,  and  it  would  be  well  for  you  to  remember  the  re- 
mark, "  cum  Veritas  ipsa  limatur  in  disputatione,  subtilitas  :  alia, 
cum  ad  opinionem  communem  omnis  accommodatur  oratio." 

If  the  plain  and  obvious  principles,  which  I  have  briefly  sug- 
gested, be  applied  to  the  criticism  of  the  ancient  documents 
which  have  survived  the  ravages  of  time,  we  shall  find  that  there 
is  not  a  single  record  of  the  first  four  centuries,  which  sustains 
the  decision  of  Trent.  The  unbroken  testimony  of  that  whole 
period  is  clearly,  decidedly,  unanswerably,  against  that  unparal- 
leled deed  of  atrocity  and  guilt.  And  how  else  can  it  be  regard- 
ed but  as  a  downright  insult  to  the  understandings  of  men, 
when  the  formal  catalogues  of  the  primitive  church  are  produced, 
when  the  passages  are  brought  forward  in  which  the  best  and 
noblest  champions  of  the  faith  undertake  professedly  to  recount 
the  books  of  the  canon,  when  they  come  forward  for  the  express 
purpose  of  bearing  testimony  in  the  matter  before  us,  how  else 
can  it  be  regarded  but  as  a  downright  insult  to  the  understand" 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  245 

ings  of  men,  to  tell  us  that  this  is  not  the  voice  of  antiquity,  that 
these  recorded  statements  are  not  the  ^rwc  statements  of  the  case, 
because  it  so  happens  that  other  books  besides  those  included  in 
the  lists  of  inspiration,  were  not  treated  as  absolutely  heathenish 
and  jp7'ofane.  For  this,  as  we  have  seen,  when  fairly  interpreted, 
is  the  real  amount  of  the  testimony  in  favor  of  the  Apocrypha. 
The  ancient  church  treated  them  as  religious  and  edifying 
books,  just  precisely  as  the  modern  church  regards  the  composi- 
tions of  Howe,  Owen  and  Scott.  Therefore,  we  are  gravely 
told,  they  must  be  inspired. 

When  I  reflect  upon  your  whole  course  of  argument  upon 
this  subject,  I  can  hardly  persuade  myself  that  you  are  able  to 
peruse  your  own  lucubrations  without  losing  your  gravity. 

You  set  out  with  the  purpose  of  proving  that  Christ  and  his 
apostles  had  delivered  the  Apocrypha  to  the  Christian  church  as 
inspired  documents.  This  was  a  perfectly  plain  and  intelligible 
proposition;  it  respected  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  the  legitimate 
proof  of  which  was  credible  testimony,  and  we  had  a  right  to 
expect  that  you  would  produce  some  record  of  the  apostles,  in 
which  it  was  directly  stated,  or  some  authentic  evidence  from 
those  who  were  cotemporary  with  them,  that  such  was  the  case. 
But  these  reasonable  expectations  are  excited  only  to  be  blasted. 
Nothing  of  the  sort  appears  in  any  part  of  your  letters  ;  but  as  if 
in  mockery  of  our  hopes,  you  put  us  off  with  a  series  of  quota- 
tions, which,  allowing  them  all  the  weight  that  can  possibly  be 
given  to  them,  prove  nothing  more  than  the  existence  of  the  books 
in  the  apostolic  age.  Then  we  are  to  infer,  it  would  seem, 
that  Christ  and  his  apostles  delivered  the  Apocrypha  to  the 
Christian  church  as  inspired,  because  the  books  existed  in  the 
apostolic  age.  But  hold  !  You  have,  perhaps,  some  stronger 
reasons  in  reserve.  The  primitive  church  believed  them  to  be 
inspired;  therefore,  beyond  all  question,  they  must  be  inspired. 
Now,  granting  what  I  am  unable  to  perceive,  the  legitimacy  of 
your  therefore,  in  the  present  case,  how  does  it  appear  that  such 
was  the  faith  of  the  primitive  church?  This  point,  you  inform 
us,  is  as  clear  as  noonday,  for  the  Fathers  of  the  ancient  church 
actuallij  quoted  these  very  books,  and  pronounced  them  to  be 
useful  and  edifying  compositions.     This  is  demonstration  plain 


i246  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  irrefragable  as  holy  writ,  and  he  who  cannot  see  the  proofs 
of  inspiration  in  conduct  of  this  kind,  must  be  a  stubborn  and 
refractory  spirit  that  deserves  the  damnation  which  Trent  has 
denounced.  The  substance  of  your  letters  may  be  embodied  in 
the  following  beautiful  sorites  : 

The  Apocrypha  were  quoted  by  the  primitive  church. 

Whatever  it  quoted  it  believed  to  be  inspired. 

Whatever  it  believed  to  be  inspired,  it  had  received  from  the 
hands  of  Christ  and  his  apostles. 

Therefore  the  Apocrypha  were  delivered  to  the  church  by 
Christ  and  his  apostles  as  inspired  documents. 


LETTER    XVI. 

Examination  of  Testimonies. 


That  the  reader  may  distinctly  apprehend  how  slender  is  the 
basis  upon  which  the  church  of  Rome  has  erected  her  porten- 
tous additions  to  the  Scriptures,  I  proceed  to  examine,  in  detail, 
the  various  testimonies  upon  which  you  have  relied  to  prove  the 
inspiration  of  the  Apocrypha.  This  task,  it  is  true,  is,  in  a  great 
degree,  unnecessary,  since  it  has  already  been  conclusively  de- 
monstrated that  your  method  of  procedure  is  deceitful  and  falla- 
cious. But  as  in  the  weakness  of  your  attempted  refutation,  you 
have  only  shown  the  strength  of  the  position,  that  within  the  pe- 
riod embraced  in  this  discussion,  the  first  four  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era,  not  a  single  writer  can  be  found  who  regarded 
these  documents  as  the  word  of  God,  it  may  be  of  service  to  the 
interests  of  righteousness  to  cross-examine  your  witnesses  one  by 
one,  and  to  show,  as  the  result,  that  upon  the  subject  of  the  books 
of  the  canon,  the  voice  of  antiquity  is  harmonious  and  clear. 
Still,  however,  it  deserves  to  be  remarked,  that  if  you  had  been 
as  successful  as  you  evidently  hoped  to  be,  in  establishing  the 
fact  that  the  primitive  Fathers,  to  whom  you  have  appealed,  co- 


APOCRVPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  '247 

incided  upon  this  point  with  the  Council  of  Trent,  your  original 
proposition  would  not  have  been  sustained.  Your  purpose  was 
to  prove  that  Christ  or  his  apostles  had  given  to  the  Christian 
church  the  authority,  of  which,  according  to  you,  the  Jews  were 
not  possessed,  to  insert  these  books  into  the  sacred  canon.  It 
was  testimony  in  behalf  of  this  fact,  of  which  you  were  in  quest, 
and  such  testimony  you  cannot  surely  pretend  to  have  produced 
in  the  beggarly  quotations  with  which  you  have  amused  us. 
Since,  however,  you  have  failed,  signally  failed,  as  a  slight  inves- 
tigation will  render  indubitable,  in  your  laborious  endeavors  to 
prove  that  the  canon  of  the  Fathers  was  the  same  with  the  can- 
on of  Rome,  how  disgraceful  and  overwhelming  must  be  your 
defeat  whenever  you  shall  condescend  to  undertake  the  discus- 
sion of  the  other,  your  main  and  leading  proposition  ! 

1.  The  first  writer  of  the  second  century  to  whom  you  have 
appealed,  is  Justin  Martyr.  You  produce  a  passage  from  the 
first  Apology,  which  Justin  himself  professes  to  have  borrowed 
from  the  books  of  Moses,  but  which  you  are  certain,  in  defiance 
of  his  own  unequivocal  assertion,  must  have  been  condensed 
from  a  corresponding  passage  in  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus,  the  son  of 
Sirach.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a  question  between  i/ou  and  yjie,  but 
a  question  between  you  and  the  father  himself,  whether  or  not  he 
has  quoted  the  Apocrypha.  In  the  midst  of  proof  of  the  moral 
agency  of  man  and  a  consequent  refutation  of  the  dangerous  and 
absurd  pretensions  of  libertines  and  fatalists,  Justin  observes  : 
"•  The  Holy  Prophetic  Spirit  taught  us  these  things,  having  said 
through  3foses,  that  God  spoke  thus  to  the  first  formed  man  :  Be- 
hold, before  you  are  good  and  evil,  choose  the  good."*  "  It 
might  seem,"  you  inform  us  in  your  curious  and  amusing  criti- 
cism upon  this  passage,  "that  St.  Justin  thought  that  Moses  de- 
clares God  spoke  thus  to  Adam  ;  but  in  his  writings  he  appears 
too  well  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures  and  to  have  studied  the 
account  of  the  creation  too  accurately,  to  commit  such  a  mistake. 
I  have  not  the  means,"  you  continue,  "  of  discovering   whether 


*  EJ((5a^e  Kai  rj/^as  raura  to  ayiov  T7o-)(pr]TtKov  Trvevjia  Sta  Mwo-ews  (ptjffav  rw  nporot 
Tt^aaOcPTi  avOpatTTd}  eipricOai  otto  tov  Oeov  ovtwj,  i6ov  irpo  Trpoaunov  aov  to  ayaOov  Kai  to 
KUKoy-  cK^c^ai  to  ayaOov.     Apol.  i.  §44.  p.  69.  Faiis  edition,  1742. 


248  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THK 

there  be  any  grounds  for  supposing  some  error  of  the  manuscript 
in  recording  the  name,  or  whether  we  are  forced  to  say  that  he 
meant  that  Moses  gives  us  an  account  of  the  creation  and  of  the 
facts,  thouorh  he  does  not  record  the  words  which  elsewhere  the 
Holy  and  Prophetic  Spirit  testifies  were  spoken,  or  that  St. 
Justin,  in  fine,  erred  in  memory,  confounding  one  part  of  Scrip- 
ture with  another.  This  much  is  certain,  that  the  words  attribu- 
ted by  him  to  the  Holy  and  Prophetic  Spirit,  are  found  in  Eccle- 
siasticus  xv.,  from  which  they  are  evidently  condensed. 

It  is  not  a  little  singular  that  the  holy  Father  should  have 
been  too  accurately  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures  to  commit 
the  mistake,  if  indeed  a  mistake  it  can  be  called,  which  his 
w^ords  most  obviously  seem  to  imply,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
have  possessed  a  memory  so  treacherous  and  erring  as  to  con- 
found one  part  of  Scripture  with  another.  The  question,  too, 
might  naturally  be  asked,  why,  i.f  the  memory  only  were  in  fault, 
it  is  not  just  as  likely  that  Justin  has  confounded  what  Moses  is 
recorded  to  have  said  in  the  fifteenth  and  nineteenth  verses  of  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  Deuteronomy  to  his  assembled  countrymen, 
with  what  God  announced  to  the  progenitor  of  the  race,  as  that 
he  has  mistaken  the  son  of  Sirach  for  the  author  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. As  there  exists  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  the 
name  of  Moses  has  been  corruptly  foisted  into  the  text,  we  are 
compelled  to  acknowledge  that  the  good  father,  even  if  he  had 
really,  though  unconsciously,  condensed  the  passage  in  question 
from  the  corresponding  passage  in  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus,  treats 
it  as  inspired,  and  ascribes  it  to  the  Holy  Prophetic  Spirit,  not 
because  it  is  found  in  Ecclesiasticus,  but  because  he  supposed  it 
had  been  written  by  the  Jewish  Legislator.  The  words  are  cer- 
tainly contained  in  the  Pentateuch,  though  not  in  the  connec- 
tion in  which  they  are  quoted  by  Justin.  Moses  nowhere  says, 
totidera  verbis,  that  God  employed  such  language  to  the  father 
of  the  race,  but  he  distinctly  teaches  what  is  equivalent  to  it: 
that  Adam  was  placed  under  a  legal  dispensation,  in  which  life 
was  promised  as  the  reward  of  obedience,  and  death  threatened 
as  the  penalty  of  transgression.  As  such  a  dispensation  might 
be  conveniently  described  in  the  very  words  which  Justin  has 
quoted,  and  as   Moses  actually  employed  them  in  the  thirtieth 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  249 

chapter  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,*  it  is  no  rash  presumption 
to  suppose  that  they  were  simply  accommodated,  in  the  passage 
before  us,  to  express  the  condition  in  which  man  was  placed,  as 
Paul  accommodates  a  portion  of  the  same  chapter  in  his  beauti- 
ful description  of  the  economy  of  grace, t  The  point  which  Jus- 
tin had  in  view,  was  to  prove  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  a 
point  necessarily  involved  in  a  state  of  probation,  and  which, 
therefore,  would  be  sufficiently  established  by  showing  what 
Moses  had  unquestionably  taught,  that  man  was  made  the  subject  of 
law.  "  It  appears  from  the  Scriptures," — he  would  say,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  to  paraphrase  his  meaning — "it  appears  from  the 
Scriptures,  that  man  is  a  responsible,  voluntary  agent,  because, 
when  originally  formed  by  God,  it  was  made  to  depend  upon  his 
own  choice,  upon  the  free  decisions  of  his  own  will,  whether  he 
should  be  eternally  happy  or  miserable — life  and  death  were  set 
before  him — an  easy  probation  was  assigned  him — and  hence  it 
follows  that  the  power  of  election  necessarily  belonged  to  him. 
The  very  language  which  Moses  employed  in  a  different  connec- 
tion, so  exactly  describes  the  nature  of  the  trial  to  which  our  first 
Father  was  subjected,  that  it  may  fitly  be  considered  as  the  terms 
in  which  God  addressed  him,  when  he  set  befv:>re  him  the  bless- 
ing and  the  curse,  in  the  garden  of  Eden. "|  If  this  view  of  the 
passage  be  correct,  there  is  evidently  no  necessity  of  contradict- 
ing the  statements  of  Justin  himself,  and  of  making  him  quote 
from  one  book  when  he  professes  to  have  borrowed  from  another. 
You  hare  consequently  not  succeeded,  and  I  may  venture  to 
assert  that  you  will  never  succeed  in  bringing  up  a  single  excep- 
tion to  the  sweeping  remark  of  Bishop  Cosin,  that  Justin  Martyr, 
**  in  all  his  works,  citeth  not  so  much  as  any  one  passage  out  of 
the  Apocryphal  books,  nor  makcth  the  least  mention  of  them  at 
all."  This  is  certainly  astonishing,  since  in  his  Dialogue  with 
Trypho,  the  Jew,  the  subject  invited  him  to  incidental  notices  of 
the  conduct  and  temper  of  the  Jewish  people  in  regard  to  the 
Scriptures.     Though  you  are  right  in  supposing  that  quotations 

*  Verses  15  and  19.  t  Vide  Romans  x.  6,7,  8. 

X  The  Editor  of  Justin  has  accordingly  remarked,  in  a  note  upon  the  pas- 
sage— "  Si  sensus  consideretur,  satis  haec  congruunt  cum  iis  quae  Dcus  Adamo 
dixit." 

12 


•250  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

ill  that  conference  from  the  Apocryphal  works,  as  authoritative 
decisions  of  the  matters  in  dispute,  would  have  been  inadmissible, 
yet  it  was  manifestly  not  out  of  place  to  expose  the  hardness  of 
heart  and  blindness  of  mind  which  persevered  in  the  rejection  of 
inspired  documents,  after  satisfactory  proof  had  been  furnished 
that  they  proceeded  from  God.  Justin  reproaches  the  Jews  with 
their  obduracy  and  malice,  with  their  deliberate  contempt  of 
the  light  of  truth,  and  their  fraudulent  suppression  of  Messianic 
texts  in  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms,*  but  not  a  syllable  does  he 
whisper  of  what  would  have  been  still  more  conclusive  proof  of 
their  terrible  fatuity,  not  a  syllable  does  he  whisper  of  their  sup- 
pressing, in  addition  to  single  passages  and  isolated  texts,  whole 
books  of  the  Bible.  This  is  strange,  if  the  Jews  indeed  had  been 
guilty  of  such  an  atrocity.     So  much  for  the  testimony  of  Justin. 

2.  Your  next  witness  is  Ireneeus  of  Lyons.  You  produce 
passages  from  him  in  which  it  is  conceded  that  he  quotes  the 
Apocryphal  books  of  Wisdom,  and  of  Baruch,  and  the  corrupt 
additions  to  the  prophecy  of  Daniel.t 

As,  however,  he  introduces  his  quotations  with  no  expres- 
sions of  peculiar  respect  or  religious  veneration  which  show  that 
the  sentiment  is  not  simply  accommodated  because  it  accords 
with  the  judgment  of  the  writer,  but  is  received  with  deference 
and  reverential  submission  as  an  authoritative  statement  of  di- 
vine truth  :  as  Irenaeus  drops  no  hint  of  any  uncommon  or  extra- 
ordinary regard  for  the  documents  in  question,  beyond  what  he 
felt  for  other  works,  and  works  confessedly  of  human  composi- 
tion, of  which  he  has  also  availed  himself;  I  am  wholly  at  a  loss 
to  determine  what  use  you  can  possibly  make  of  his  testimony. 
Where  does  he  say  that  these  books  are  supernaturally  inspired 
— that  they  constitute  a  part  of  the  Rule  of  Faith — an  integral 
portion  of  the  written  revelation  which  God  has  given  of  his 
wiin  What  language  does  he  apply  to  them,  from  which  it  can 
be  gathered  that  he  looked  upon  them  as  posessed  of  equal  author- 

*  Vide  Conference  with  Trypho,  §  72,  73,  for  a  specimen  of  these  charges 
of  fraudulent  deahng  with  the  Scriptures. 

t  Wisdom  vi.  20  is  quoted  Contra  Haeres.  Lib.  iv.  cap.  33.  Baruch  iv.  36, 
37,  is  quoted,  Lib.  v.  cap.  35.  Baruch  v.  entire  is  quoted,  Lib.  v,  cap.  36.  The 
story  of  Susannah  is  quoted,  Lib.  iv.  cap.  26.  Bell  and  the  Dragon,  Libj  iv. 
cap.  5. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED     AND    REFUTED.  251 

ity  and  entitled  to  equal  veneration  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets 
and  the  Psalms  ?  If  the  mere  fact  that  Irenaeus  has  quoted  them, 
is  sufficient  to  canonize  Wisdom,  Baruch,  and  the  additions  to 
Daniel,  Rome  must  considerably  enlarge  her  canon,  since  the 
same  argument  would  embrace  in  its  sweeping  conclusion  divers 
other  books,  which  have  never  been  esteemed  as  supernaturally 
inspired.  In  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  book  against  heresies,  he 
quotes  a  passage  from  Justin  Martyr,  and  endorses  the  sentiment 
as  fully  and  completely  as  in  any  of  the  cases  in  which  he  ap- 
peals to  the  Apocrypha.*  In  the  twenty-eighth  chapter  of  the 
fifth  book  of  the  same  great  woik,  a  sentence  is  introduced  from 
Ignatius's  epistle  to  the  Romans, t  and  in  the  fourth  chapter  of 
the  fourth  book,  a  nameless  author  is  commended, |  who  is  prob- 
ably the  same  that  Eusebius  denominates  an  apostolical  Presby- 
ter. But  what  is  most  striking  and  remarkable  of  all,  in  the 
twentieth  chapter  of  the  fourth  book,  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  is 
not  only  quoted,  but  quoted  distinctively  as  Scripture.^  Now 
are  we  to  infer  that  Justin,  Ignatius  and  Hermas,  all  wrote  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  or  shall  we  not  rather  con- 
clude that  the  argument  from  Irenaeus,  proves  too  much,  and 
therefore,  upon  logical  principles,  is  absolutely  worthless? 

*  Iv«£  KoXtii;  \ovGTivoi  ev  ro  ttjOoj  ^AapKicJva  (rvvrayijnri  ^tjc-jj/*  on  ovtm  tco  Ki<pi(x) 
ov6'    av    ETTCiaOeiev,    a^^Xfiv    deov   KaTayye^^ovTi    irapa  top    6r]jiiovpyov  .  .  .      We    cannot 

complete  the  passage  from  Justin,  since  his  own  work  lias  suffered  more  terribly 
from  the  ravages  of  time  than  even  that  of  Irenaeus.  The  Latin  is  as  follows  : 
Et  bene  Justinus  in  eo  libro  qui  est  ad  Marcionem  ait :  Quoniam  ipsi  quoque 
Domino  non  crcdidissem,  alterurn  Deum  annuntianti,  pia3tcr  fahricatorem  et 
factorem  et  nutritorem  nostrum.  Beautifully  says  Justin  in  his  Treatise  against 
Marcion,  "  I  would  not  believe  even  the  Lord  Himself  announcing  another  God 
beside  our  Maker,  Architect  and  Preserver." 

t  Qi  eiTiE  Tii  TMV  riixcTipwi'^  eta  Trjv  Trpoj  Oeov  jiaprvniav  KaraKpiBcii  Trpos  6r)pia'  on 
airoi  cifti  Oeov,  kui  Jj'  oSiVTaiv  CrfoiMV  a'Xrid  ijiai^  wa  naOapos  npros  evpedu.  As  said 
one  of  ours,  condenmed  to  the  wild  beasts  on  account  of  his  testimony  for  God, 
*•  I  am  the  bread  of  God,  and  am  ground  by  the  teeth  of  wild  beasts  that  I  may 
be  found  pure  bread." 

I  Et  bene  qui  dixit  ipsum  immensum  Patrein  in  Filio  mensuratum  ;  mensura 
enim  Patris,  Filius,  quoniam  et  cajjit  cum.  Well  has  one  observed,  that  the 
Inmiense  Father  is  measured  in  the  t:?on — the  Son  is  the  measure  of  the  Father, 
since  he  contains  him. 

§  Ko,\a)j  ovi'  ttKct'  r]  ypnf}]  rj  }iCyoicri'  Trpurov  Trai'Tuv  rrtar€vc!)i',on  en  eonv  o  Otoi, 
0  ra  -rai'Ta  KTicui  Kat  Karannaaq  Kut  rrotrirrai  ck  tov  jirt  ovroi  ck;  to  £iyai  ra  iravra. 


252  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

If  you  should  object  that  Baruch  is  quoted  under  the  name 
of  Jeremiah,  and  the  additions  to  Daniel,  under  the  name  of 
that  prophet,  you  yourself  have  supplied  us  with  the  materials  of 
solving  the  difficulty.  "  The  book  of  Baruch  was  at  that  time 
joined  to  the  book  of  Jeremiah,"  and  consequently,  the  name  of 
the  prophet  must  have  been  used  in  reference  to  the  book.  It 
was  the  title  of  the  work  in  the  Alexandrine  versions  which 
were  then  in  use.  Those,  therefore,  who  appealed  to  it,  under 
that  title,  no  more  expressed  the  belief  that  Jeremiah  composed 
it,  than  those  who  refer  to  the  preaching  of  Peter,  imply  the  con- 
viction that  Peter  was  its  author.  Huetius  informs  us  that  in  the 
ancient  list  of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  which  served  as  "ft  guide  to  the 
copyists  in  their  labor  of  transcription,  the  name  of  Baruch  was 
not  introduced,  but  that  his  work  was  embraced  under  the  title  of 
Jeremiah*  The  stories  of  Susannah,  and  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon, 
in  the  same  way,  were  joined  to  the  prophecy  of  Daniel,  and 
were  consequently  quoted  under  the  general  name  of  the  book. 
As  we  cannot  for  a  moment  suppose  that  Irenaeus  was  so  stupid 
as  really  to  believe  that  Jeremiah  was  the  author  of  a  work  which 
in  its  very  first  sentence  professed  to  be  written  by  another 
man,  it  is  indisputably  clear  that  the  name  of  the  prophet  is  no 
otherwise  employed  than  as  the  distinctive  designation  of  the 
book,  and  consequently  the  use  of  it  determines  nothing  in  refer- 
ence to  the  question  whether  or  not  Baruch  was  regarded  as  an 
inspired  production.  Jeremiah  and  Daniel,  in  the  quotations  of 
Irenaeus,  being  used  only  in  a  titular  sense,  the  quotations  them- 
selves afford  not  a  particle  of  proof  touching  the  point  which  you 
introduced  them  to  establish. 

3.  You  next  entertain  us  with  aperies  of  passages  from  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria;  and  the  number  might  have  been  greatly  in- 
creased— in  which,  because  he  cites  Ecclesiasticus  and  Tobias 
under  the  title  of  Scripture ;  appeals  to  Wisdom  as  the  work  of 
Solomon,  and  distinguishes  it,  moreover,  by  the  epithet  Divine; 
quotes  Baruch  under  the  name  of  Jeremiah,  and  honors  it,  in  ad- 

*  Librarii  volumina  sacra  enscribentes,  in  eorum  indice  Baruchi  nomen  noii 
reperient  qui  sab  Jeremise  titulo  continebatur,  Demonstratio  de  Prophet. 
Baruch, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTBD.  253 

dition,  as  Divine  scripture,  you  would  have  us  infer  that  he  re- 
crarded  these  works  as  an  integral  portion  of  the  canon  of  Faith. 
The  number  and  variety  of  the  quotations  occurring  in  Clement 
from  the  apocryphal  documents  should  be  no  matter  of  surprise, 
when  we  call  to  mind  the  peculiar  esteem  in  which  they  were 
held  by  the  Jews  in  the  city  of  his  residence  and  labors,  sur- 
rounded as  he  was  by  those  who  revered  them  as  monuments  of 
their  national  history — the  history  of  a  people  whom  God  had 
distinguished  as  his  chosen  inheritance,  and  who  had  prepared 
the  way  for  that  glorious  dispensation  in  which  Clement  rejoiced — 
it  was  not  to  be  presumed  that  he  would  be  entirely  exempt  from 
the  general  sentiment,  especially  when  he  found  that  some  of 
these  books,  in  the  midst  of  many  defects,  were  largely  impreg- 
nated with  the  spirit  of  devotion.  He  would  naturally  be  led  to 
treat  them  with  the  same  partiality  which  the  Jews  entertained 
for  them.  As  to  them  had  been  committed  the  oracles  of  God, 
and  the  canon  of  inspiration  had  been  received  at  their  hands, 
his  feeling  in  regard  to  other  books  preserved  among  this  same 
extraordinary  people,  xyould  obviously  take  its  complexion  from 
them.  He  would  consequently  be  led — not  to  regard  the  apoc- 
rypha as  inspired,  for  the  Jews  never  did  it — but  to  treat  them 
as  religious  and  devout  compositions,  to  study  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  personal  improvement,  to  read  them  in  the  same  way 
in  which  Baxter  and  Owen  and  Howe  are  perused  in  the  mod- 
ern church,  and  to  adorn  his  writings  with  contributions  levied 
from  their  stores,  as  Protestant  Divines  appeal  to  the  works  of 
standard  though  uninspired  authors.  The  ambiguous  titles  of 
commendation  and  respect  which  Clement  applies  to  them,  it 
has  already  been  demonstrated,  do  not  involve  the  belief  of  in- 
spiration— epithets  equally  distinctive  and  laudatory  he  does  not 
scruple  to  bestow  upon  divers  other  books*  which  make  no  pre- 
tensions to  a  place  in  the  canon — some  of  which  indeed  were 
genuine — others  grossly  spurious — others  still  absolutely  heathen- 
ish— books,  which,  though  Clement  has  quoted  and  commended, 
he  distinctly  intimates  were  possessed  of  no  authority  as  an  in- 
spired rule  of  faith. 

*  Euschius,  11.  Vi.  Lib.  vi.  c.  13. 


254  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

If,  now,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  principle  upon  which  you 
have  made  this  father  endorse  the  inspiration  of  Wisdom  and 
Tobias,  Ecclesiasticus  and  Baruch,  will  also  canonize  Barnabas 
and  Hermas,  Clement  of  Rome,  and,  if  not  the  Gospels  according 
to  the  Hebrews  and  Egyptians,  yet  certainly  the  preaching  of 
Peter,  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras,  and  even  the  pretended  verses 
of  the  Sibyl,  every  candid  mind  must  acknowledge  that  your 
argument  is  worthless,  and  that  the  same  titles  which  are  com- 
monly employed,  in  introducing  quotations  from  the  canonical 
books,  may  also  be  applied  to  other  works  which  are  confessedly 
destitute  of  any  claim  to  a  supernatural  origin. 

1,  Barnabas  is  repeatedly  cited*  in  the  booksof  the  Stromata, 
and  in  three  distinct  instances  receives  the  very  appellation  of 
authority  which  Clement  usually  bestows  upon  Paul.  lie  is  not 
only  called  the  Apostle  Barnabas,  but,  in  one  remarkable 
passage,  seems  to  be  treated,  like  the  oath  of  confirmation,  as 
an  end  of  strife,  t  ''  For  this,"  says  Clement,  "  I  need  not  use 
many  words,  but  only  to  allege  the  testimony  of  the  apostolic 
Barnabas,  who  was  one  of  the  seventy  and  fellow-laborer  of 
Paul."  Now,  if  there  ever  was  an  officer  in  the  Christian  Church 
entitled  to  command  the  faith  and  to  bind  the  consciences  of 
men,  that  officer  was  the  Apostle.  Paul  usually  commences  his 
Epistles  with  a  distinct  assertion  of  his  Apostolic  office,  and  the 
church  itself  is  erected  "  on  the  foundation  of  the  prophets  and 
apostles^  Jesus  Christ  Himself  being  the  chief-corner  stone." 
To  the  apostles  the  promise  was  originally  made  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  should  be  imparted  as  a  Divine  Teacher,  who  should  guide 
them  into  all  truth,  and  brinor  to  their  remembrance  the  instruc- 
tions  of  the  Son.     To  call  a  man   an  apostle,  therefore,  would 

*  Stromat.  Lib.  ii.  cap.  6  (sub  fine),  Ei»forwf  ow  b  AkoctoXos  ^apvaf^as  (prjuiv 
— ^"Rightly,  therefore,  says  the  Apostle  Barnabas."  This  is  precisely  the  form 
in  which  Clement  sometimes  quotes  the  inspired  writers.  For  example,  a  pas- 
sage from  the  Psalms  is  thus  introduced,  Strom.  Lib.  ii.  c.  15:  E^ikotus  ow 
(prjaiv  0  Jlpocprirrii — "  Rightly,  therefore,  says  the  Prophet."  For  other  quotations 
from  Barnabas,  see  Strom,  ii.  18,  v.  10,  ii.  15. 

t    StrOJ7l.  ii.  20  :    Ow  [loi    6£i  ■n'KEiovhiv  Xoyajy.  TrapaBcjiCvo)  fiapTW   tov  arroaTo'XiKnv 

Bapva/Sav,  &c.     It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  passage,  as  the  context  will  show, 
Barnabas  seems  to  be  quoted  to  prove  a  doctrine. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  255 

seem  to  be  equivalent  to  pronouncing  him  inspired.  It  was  an 
office  furnished  with  the  gift  of  supernatural  wisdom  and  infalli- 
ble knowledge;  and  yet  Clement  does  not  scruple  to  distinguish 
"  the  fellow-laborer  of  Paul"  with  this  high  title  of  authority. 
Did  Clement  believe  that  Barnabas  was  actually  inspired?  Let 
a  single  fact  answer  the  question.  He  contradicts  *  the  exposi- 
tion which  Barnabas  had  given  of  the  Mosaic  prohibition — "  thou 
shalt  not  eat  of  the  hyena  nor  the  hare," — which,  says  Cotele- 
rius,  "  he  would  by  no  means  have  done,  if  he  had  believed 
that  Barnabas  was  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  canon." 

The  epithet  apostle — the  distinguishing  title  of  the  inspired 
founders  of  the  church — must  consequently  have  been  applied  to 
him  in  an  inferior  and  subordinate  sense.  To  me  it  seems  self- 
evident,  that  to  call  a  book  scripture,  is  no  stronger  proof  of  in- 
spiration than  to  affirm  that  it  was  written  by  an  apostle.  In 
fact,  it  is  much  more  likely  that  such  a  general  term  as  scripture , 
in  its  own  nature  applicable  to  every  variety  of  composition, 
should  be  promiscuously  employed,  than  that  an  official  designa- 
tion of  the  highest  rank  should  be  attributed  to  those  who  posses- 
sed none  of  the  extraordinary  endowments  that  give  a  right  to 
the  title.  As  then  uninspired  men  among  the  ancient  writers 
were  unquestionably  denominated  apostles,  it  is  not  incredible  that 
uninspired  books  should  have  been  in  like  mannner  denominated 
scripture. 


'*  "  There  is  no  inconsiderable  proof  to  be  made  out  of  the  works  of  Clemens 
Ale^ndrinus  himself,  that  lie  did  not  look  upon  this  Epistle  (Barnabas's)  as 
having  any  manner  of  authority,  but  on  the  contrary  took  the  liberty  to  contra- 
dict and  oppose  it.  One  instance  will  be  sufficient.  In  Faedag.  hih.ii.  c.  10, 
p.  188,  he  cites  the  explication  of  Barnabas  on  that  law  of  Moses — thou  shalt 
not  eat  of  the  hyena  nor  the  hare — that  is,  not  be  like  those  animals  in  their 
lascivious  qualities.  He  does  not,  indeed,  name  Barnabas  as  in  other  places  ; 
but  nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  that  he  refers  to  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas, 
ch.  X.  After  which  he  adds,  that  though  he  doubted  not  but  Moses  designed  a 
prohibition  of  adultery  by  prohibiting  these  animals,  ov  ftci>  m  tt^Sc  e^riyn<yti  twv 
avjilioXiKMi  etprj^tevuiv  cvyKoTtOenai,  yet  he  could  not  agree  with  the  symbolical 
explication  some  gave  of  the  place,  viz.,  that  the  hyena  changes  its  sex  yearly, 
and  is  sometimes  male,  and  sometimes  female,  as  Barnabas.  After  which  he 
largely  disputes  the  fact."     Jones  on  Can.  Part  iii.  c.  40. 


256  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

2.  Clement  of  Rome  is  also  quoted*  in  the  Stromata,  and 
quoted  as  an  apostle.  Upon  your  principle  of  reasoning,  accord- 
ingly, his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  ought  to  be  inserted  in  the 
sacred  library  of  the  church. 

3.  But  how  will  you  dispose  of  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas?  It 
was  evidently  a  favorite  with  Clement,  and  is  sometimes  describ- 
ed in  language  which,  if  you  had  found  it  in  connection  with 
Wisdom,  and  Tobias,  Ecclesiasticus  and  Baruch,  you  would  per- 
haps have  paraded  as  triumphant  proof  of  their  Divine  authority. 
Let  me  call  your  attention  to  two  remarkable  passages.  In  the 
twenty-ninth  chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Stromata,  a  quotation  is 
introduced  from  the  Shepherd  in  these  words  :t  ^' Divineli/, 
therefore,  says  the  power  which  speaks  to  Hermas  hy  revelation." 
Again,  at  the  close  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  second  book,J  an- 
other quotation  is  introduced  in  terms  almost  as  strong :  "  The 
power  that  appeared  in  vision  to  Hermas,  says."  Now  here  is  a 
power  which  speaks  divinely,  reveals  things  in  visions,  and  per- 
forms the  offices  in  regard  to  Hermas  which  are  described  in  the 
same  words  with  the  supernatural  communications  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  the  prophets.  Did  Clement  mean  to  assert  that  the 
Pastor  of  Hermas  was  an  inspired  production  1  Most  unquestion- 
ably not  ;§  and  yet  he  has  employed  no  language  in  reference  to 
any  of  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha,  which  is  more  explicit,  more 
pointed,  or  more  decided  than  the  commendations  lavished  on  the 
Shepherd.  You  say  that  Wisdom  must  be  inspired,  because  Cle- 
ment calls  it  divine  Wisdom,  but  Hermas,  also,  according  to  him, 
speaks  divinely.  Nay  the  argument  for  Hermas  is  far  more 
powerful.    He  not  ^only  speaks  divinely,  he  speaks  by  revelation, 


otro?n.  Lib.  i.  c.  7  :  A.vriKa  6  K.\r]fievs  ev  jx]  npos  K.optvdiovs  enicTro\ri,  Kara 
Xe^lv,  (prjai — "As  Clement  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  says."  Again, 
otrom.  iv.  C.  17  :  Nat  jitjv  ev  tj]  npos  K.opivdiovs  ETna-ToXri  b  AttootoAoj  K.'Xtj^uvi — 
"  the  apostle  Clement  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians." 

t    Qeicj;  TOivvv  rj  Swafjiis  ri  tlo  Epfia  Kara  airoKaXv^iv  XaXovcra. 

t    $J7o-(  yap  £v  TO)  opauuTi  rw  Ep/^a  r]  Jrra^ftf,  rj  (paveiaa. 

§  That  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  never  was  received  as  canonical,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  testimonies:  Euseb.  H.  E.  Lib.  iii.  c.  3,  25  ;  Ter- 
tull.  do  Oratione  c.  12  ;  Origen  Horn.  viii.  in  Numeros,  x.  in  Jos.,  i.  in  Psalm. 
37  ;  Athauasius  de  Decret.  Nicaenae  Synod,  in  Epistola  Pasch. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  257 

he  declares  things  which  have  been  opened  in  visions,  and  re- 
ceives communications  from  the  lips  of  an  angel,  like  Daniel  in 
his  prophecy  and  John  in  the  Apocalypse. 

4.  The  Preaching  of  Peter,  a  document  which  Clement  must 
have  known  to  be  apocryphal,  he  not  only  cites,  but  cites  dis- 
tinctly under  the  name  of  the  Apostle.  His  most  usual  form  of 
quotation  is,  *'  Peter  says  in  the  Preachings,"  or  simply,  "  Peter 
says,"  when  there  had  been  a  previous  mention  of  the  book.* 
Now  upon  the  same  principles  of  criticism  from  which  you  have 
inferred  that  Clement  received  Wisdom  as  the  work  of  Solomon, 
it  must  also  be  maintained  that  he  regarded  the  Preaching  as  a 
genuine  production  of  the  Apostle.  The  argument  is  just  as 
strong  in  the  one  case  as  it  is  in  the  other.  Because  a  passage  is 
introduced  from  Wisdom,  and  treated  without  scruple  as  a  say- 
ing of  Solomon,  you  boldly  conclude  that  Solomon  was  declared 
to  be  the  author  of  the  book,  but  precisely  the  same  is  done  in 
reference  to  Peter  and  the  apocryphal  work  which  bears  the  title 
of  his  Preaching.  I  presume,  however,  that  you  will  not  think 
of  contending  that  the  holy  Father  looked  upon  the  Preaching  as 
a  part  of  the  canon,  which  he  certainly  must  have  done  if  he  be- 
lieved it  to  be  composed  by  one  of  the  original  Apostles.  His 
meaning,  you  would  probably  inform  us,  is  evidently  nothino- 
more  than  this,  "Peter  is  represented  as  saying"  in  a  book 
which  is  known  by  the  title  of  his  Preaching.  On  the  same 
ground  it  may  be  said,  that  in  similar  quotations  from  Wisdom  all 
that  the  father  intended  to  assert  was,  that  Solomon  is  represented 
to  have  said  in  a  book  which  is  distinguished  by  his  name.  In 
other  words,  in  both  instances  the  documents  are  quoted  accord- 
ing to  their  titles. 

5.  H  the  principle  be  true  which   you   have   assumed  as  the 
basis  of  your  argument  throughout  this  discussion — if  the  princi- 
j)le  be  true  that  whatever  books  are  quoted  by  the  Fathers  in  the' 
same  way  with  the  canonical  Scriptures,  must  themselves  be  in- 
spired, then  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras,  which  Rome  rejects, 

*  JlcTpos  cv  rw  Ki\pvyjxari  \r)yei.  Sliotn.  vi.  c.  5.  Again,  ill  the  same  chap- 
ter, referring  to  the  same  book — avroi  diaaacprirrei  Tlcrpoi.  Two  other  references 
are  in  the  same  chapter,  besides  various  others  in  the  first  and  second  books. 

I  /^ 


258  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

and  Bellarmiii  declares  to  be  disfigured  with  fables,  the  dreams 
of  Rabbins  and  Talmudists,  deserves  to  be  inserted  in  the  Sa- 
cred Library.  In  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  the  third  book  of  Strom- 
ata,  you  will  tind  a  passage  from  this  miserable  work,  standing, 
in  your  view,  upon  consecrated  ground,  (for  you  frequently  in- 
sist on  it  as  a  matter  of  some  moment,  when  a  text  from  the  Apoc- 
rypha is  introduced  in  connection  with  one  from  the  canon,) 
with  Jeremy  on  one  hand  and  Job  on  the  other.  Nay,  it  would 
seem,  if  we  confine  ourselves  simply  to  the  language,  that  Esdras 
was  regarded  as  a  fit  companion  for  these  venerable  men.  His 
book  is  quoted  as  the  work  of  a  prophet — "  says  the  Prophet 
Esdras."  I  shall  present  the  reader  with  a  free  translation  of 
the  whole  passage  :* 

"  '"  Cursed  be  the  day  wherein  I  was  born,  let  it  not  be  blessed,' 
says  Jeremiah.  He  does  not  mean  absolutely  to  say  that  his  gen- 
eration should  be  cursed,  but  to  express  his  affliction  on  account 
of  the  sins  and  disobedience  of  the  people.  He  adds,  therefore  : 
*  Wherefore  was  I  born  to  see  labors  and  sorrows,  my  days  have 
been  in  perpetual  reproach.'  In  fact,  all  faithful  preachers  of 
the  truth,  on  account  of  the  disobedience  of  tiieir  hearers,  have 
been  exposed  to  persecution  and  to  peril.  '  Why  was  nut  my 
mother's  icomh  my  sepulchre,  that  I  miglit  not  have  seen  the  travail 
of  Jacob  and  the  toil  of  the  stock  of  Israel?'  says  the  prophet 
Esdras."  The  text  may  be  found  in  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras, 
chapter  v.  o5. 

Now,  sir,  is  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras  inspired  ?  Listen  to 
Cardinal  Bellarmin  :  "  The  third  and  fourth  books  of  EscJras 
are  apocryphal ;  and  although  they  are  cited  by  the  Fathers, 
yet,  without  doubt,  they  are  not  canonical,  since  no  council  has 
ever  referred  them  to  the-  canon.  The  fourth  book  is  found 
neither    in  Hebrew  nor  Greek,  and   contains  (chap,  vi.)  certain 

*  The  original  is  as  follows  :  KziKaTapaTos  Se  rj  rijjepa,  £v  J/  ETE^drjv.  xai  firj 
(CTbi  tTTCVKTea,  0  lepcjtiai  cpqcriv.  ov  rrjv  ytvctJiv  ottAwj  CTriKarapa-up  Xcycjj',  aXX'  airoSvar- 
TTCTOiv  ern  roig  ajjiaprrijiacn  rov  Xaov  Kai  tt]  aiztiQcia'  eiTi(J)£p£i  yovi/'  Sta  ri  yap  eycvi'rjBijVf 
rov  l3\cTTEiv  KOTTOvs  KUi  TTovovi  Ktti  ^lETC^Eaav  £v  uia^vt'T]  «(  TiftEpai  fxov'  avTiKa  navTES  ov 
KrjpvacTovTES  Tr]v  a\r\OEiav^  Sia  rrjv  aTTEidEiav  tcjv  aKOVovrwv  sSioiKOvro  te  Kai  ekivSevvov, 
Aia  Ti  yap  ovk  syEVETO  t]  jArjrpa  Tr)S  ^T]Tpos  ^ov  Ta(p3Sj  iva  fir]  iSo)  tov  ixo^dov  rov  laKU)0, 
Kai  TOV  KOTTOv  TOV  yEvov?  \<Tpar)\'     E(rjf)aj  o  irpDcpnmi  Xfyet.      Stro7n.  iii.  C.  16. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  259 

fabulous  thinors  concerniiw  the  fish  Henoch  and  Leviathan,  which 
were  too  larore  for  the  seas  to  hold.  These  stories  are  the 
dreams  of  Rabbins  and  Talmudists."*  And  yet  a  work  which  is 
thus  summarily  condemned  by  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments  of 
your  church,  is  quoted  by  a  Christian  Father,  in  connection  with 
Jeremiah  and  Job,  as  the  production  of  a  Prophet !  What  a 
commentary  upon  your  principles  of  criticism  ! 

6.  Let  me  now  call  your  attention  to  the  manner  in  which 
Clement  has  treated  the  verses  of  the  Sibyl.  I  shall  not  stop  to 
inquire  whether  the  collection  which  Justin,  Theophilus  and 
himself  commended,  were  the  genuine  verses  of  the  ancient  Sibyl, 
or  an  impudent  forgery  of  a  later  date.  It  is  enough  for  my 
purpose  to  observe  that  the  book  extant  in  the  second  century 
under  the  well-known  name  of  the  Heathen  Prophetess,  is  not 
only  quoted  by  Clement,  but,  what  is  much  more  remarkable, 
distinguished   as   Prophetic   and   Divine   Scripture. t     What 

*  Apocrypbi  suiit  liber  tertius  ct  quartus  Esdrae.     Quartus  autem  Esdrac 

eitatur  quidem  ab  Ainbrosio tamen  sine  dubio  non  est  canonicus,  cum  a 

nullo  concilio  referatur  in  canonem,  et  non  inveniatur  neque  Hebraice  neque 
Graece,  ac  demum  contineat  (cap.  6)  quaedam  fabulosa  de  pisce  Henoch  et  Levia- 
ihan  quos  niaria  capere  non  poterant,  quae  Rabbinoruni,  Talmudistarum  somnia 
sunf.     Bellarm.  de  Verb.  Dei.  i.  20. 

t  As  a  specimen  of  his  treatment  of  the  Sybilline  verses,  take  the  following 
passage,  Cohort  ad  Gentes,  c.  8  : 

Qpa  TOivvv,  TOiv  aWwv  rjniv  rt]  ra^ei  ■!rpo6tT}vvaixevwv  em  rag  irpo<})£TiKai  icvat  ypa- 
(jiag.  j/at  yap  oi  )(priTii.oiy  rag  £ts  t>]v  Qfiacficiav  ejiirj  a(popijag  cvapytuTara  TzporeivovTCg, 
OtucXiovai  rr]v  aXrjOeiav'  )(Pa^at  Sc  ai  Ociai,  kui  TroXireiat  c-fo^fioarcj,  avvTOfioi  auirrjpiag 
oSof  yx'jd'at  KOf<iJio)Ttirigj  Kai  Trig  Kr]rog  KuWKpwviag  Km  otw/zuAjuj,  kui  KoXaKtiag  VTrap- 
^ovaatf  avicTOiaiv  aX'^ojitvQV  vno  KUKiag  tov  avQpwTtov^  vrreptSovaai  rov  oXiaOov  rov  Ppo- 
TiKOv,  jua  Kai  -(7  avTt)  0wj'/j  ttoXXo  Ocparrevovjai,  airoTpeTTovaai  ^ev  »7//af  reg  cTTi^iiutov 
OTzaTTig,  npoTpCTTOvcjai  Se  Cjupavug  eig  irpovrrrov  aoiTrjOLiav-  avriKa  yovv  t]  Trpo(pr)Teg  rjfitu 
nnraeo)  rrpwrr}   Ei/^uXXa,  to    aafia   to   atorripiov.      Then    follows    an  extract  from    the 

book.  This  remarkable  passage  may  be  thus  rendered  :  "  Other  things  having 
been  despatched  in  their  order,  it  is  time  to  proceed  to  the  Prophetic  Scriptures 
(i.  e.  the  Sybilline  verses).  For,  indeed,  these  oracular  responses,  setting  most 
clearly  before  us  the  means  and  method  of  Divine  Worship,  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  truth.  These  Divine  Scriptures  and  wise  institutions  are  compendious  ways 
of  salvation.  Free  from  meretricious  ornament,  the  intrinsic  embellishment  of 
speech,  from  flippancy  and  adulation,  they  elevate  the  man  who  is  depressed  by 
evil — having  taught  to  despise  the  casualties  of  life,  and  with  the  same  voice 
they  heal  many  disorders,  turn  us  away  from  dangerous  delusion,  and  direct  our 


260  ROMANIST    ARGiTmENTS    FOR    THE 

will  you  say  to  this  astounding  fact  ?  Are  you  prepared  to  as- 
sert that  he  esteemed  the  Sibyl  of  equal  authority  with  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah  and  David,  or  regarded  her  verses  as  entitled  to  equal 
veneration  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms  t  And 
yet,  if  the  names  Scripture,  Divine  Scripture,  and  such  like  ex- 
pressions, are  sufficient  to  prove  inspiration — and  upon  these  you 
have  chiefly  relied  in  urging  the  testimony  of  Clement,  in  behalf 
of  the  Apocrypha — the  books  of  the  Sibyl  have  the  same  claims  to 
a  place  in  the  canon  as  Wisdom,  Tobias  and  Baruch.  The  '*  two 
passages,"*  upon  which  you  insist  with  peculiar   emphasis,  will 


attention  to  that  salvation  which  is  before  our  eyes.  Let  then  the  Sibyl -Prophet- 
ess first  sing  to  us  the  song  of  salvation."  Where  can  any  thing  be  produced 
so  strong  in  favor  of  the  Apocrypha  1 

*  "  Let  me  now  call  your  attention  to  two  passages  from  the  first  and  the 
fourth  books  of  his  Stromaton,  from  which  we  may  learn  something  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  Scripture,  as  it  was  in  the  hands  of  this  writer  : 

"  During  this  (the  Babylonian)  captivity,  lived  Esther  and  Mordecai,  whose 
book  is  had,  as  also  that  of  the  Maccabees.  During  the  same  captivity,  Misael, 
Ananias,  and  Agarias,  unwilling  to  adore  the  statue,  were  cast  into  the  furnace 
of  fire  and  were  saved  by  an  angel  that  appeared  to  them.  Then,  too,  David 
having  been  cast  into  a  pit  of  lions,  because  of  Dagon,  and  nourished  by  Aba- 
cum  through  the  Providence  of  God,  was  saved  after  seven  days.  In  this  time, 
too,  happened  the  sign  of  Jonah.  And  Tobias,  because  of  the  angel  Raphael, 
takes  Sara  to  wife,  whose  first  seven  husbands  Satan  had  slain  ;  and  after  his 
marriage  his  father  Tobit  recovers  his  sight.  Then  Zorobabel,  having  conquered 
his  rivals  in  v»'isdom,  obtained  from  Darius  the  rebuilding  of  Jei-usalem." 

The  next  passage  is :  "  How  great  is  the  perfection  of  Moses,  who  preferred 
to  die  with  his  people  rather  than  to  remain  alone  in  life.  But  Judith,  too, 
made  perfect  among  women,  when  the  city  was  besieged,  having  besought  the 
elders,  went  into  the  camp  of  the  strangers,  despising  every  danger  for  sake  of 
her  country,  delivering  herself  to  her  enemies  with  fa i'th  in  God.  And  soon  she 
received  the  reward  of  that  faith  when  she,  a  woman,  acted  manfully  against 
the  enemy  and  obtained  the  head  of  Holophernes.  And  Esther,  also,  was  per- 
fect in  faith,  freeing  Israel  from  tyrannical  power  and  the  cruelty  of  a  satrap. 
She,  a  single  woman,  resisted  the  innumerable  armed  forces,  annulling  through 
faith  the  tyrant's  decree.  Him  she  rendered  meek  and  crushed  Aman  ;  and  by 
her  perfect  prayer  to  God,  preserved  Israel  unhurt.  I  mention  not  Susannah, 
and  the  sister  of  Moses ;  how  this  one  led  the  hosts  with  the  Prophet  the  chief 
of  all  the  women  among  the  Hebrews,  renowned  for  wisdom  ;  and  the  other 
being  led  forth  even  to  death  for  her  high  purity,  when  she  was  condemned  by 
her  incontinent  lovers,  remained  an  unshaken  martyr  of  chastity." 


ArOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    KEFUTKD.  2(U 

be  foand,  when  carefully  examined,  to  aQbrd  no  sort  of  counte- 
nance to  your  cause.  The  first  is  taken  from  the  twenty-first 
chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Stromata,  and  occurs  in  the  midst  of 
an  argument  to  prove  what  was  notoriously  a  favorite  dogma 
with  the  Fathers,  that  heathen  literature  was  derived  from  the 
Jews.  Clement  shows  that  Moses  was  earlier  than  the  Greek 
philosophers,  theogonists  and  poets,  and  that,  consequently, 
whatever  was  valuable  in  Gentile  learning,  migiit  be  historically 
traced  to  the  pure  fountains  of  Hebrew  theology.  He,  accord- 
ingly, after  having  given  a  synoptical  statement  of  Greek  chro- 
nologies, presents  us  with  a  compendious  recital  of  Jewish  his- 
tory. He  fixes,  in  the  first  place,  the  age  of  Moses,  then  exhibits 
in  rapid  review  the  leading  events  between  Moses  and  David, 
and  David  and  the  Captivity,  and  finally  mentions  the  most  re- 
markable facts  that  occurred  during  the  period  of  the  Exile. 
In  this  connection  your  first  passage  is  introduced,  Now  all 
that  Clement's  argument  required  was  that  the  statements 
which  he  gathered  from  the  Apocrypha  should  be  historically 
true.  It  was  not  important  that  they  should  be  coiifirmed  by  Di- 
vine inspiration,  or  delivered  only  by  writers  who  were  guided 
by  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  was  enough  that  he  believed  them  to  he 
true.  Historical  credibility  and  supernatural  inspiration  are  not 
terms  of  the  same  extension.  The  histories  of  Herodotus 
and  Livy  are,  without  doubt,  to  be  received  as  authentic. 
Does  it  follow  that  they  must  also  be  regarded  as  inspired  or 
Divine?  Why  then  may  not  the  history  of  the  Maccabees,  the 
narrative  of  Tobit,  and  the  story  of  Susannah,  be  received  as 
a  faithful  exhibition  of  the  facts  which  they  record,  without  be- 
ing clothed  with  supernatural  authority  1  Clement  simply  in- 
forms us,  "  that  during  this  period  lived  Esther  and  Mordecai, 
whose  book  is  had,  as  also  that  of  the  Maccabees."  But  is  there 
a  single  syllable  which  indicates  that  either  book  was  inspired  ? 
We  know,  in  fact,  that  Esther  was,  but  if  we  had  not  other  in- 
formation, we  should  never  be  able  to  collect  it  from  this  pas- 
sage. Again,  he  says,  "Tobias,  because  of  the  angel  Raphael, 
takes  Sarah  to  wife,  whose  first  seven  husbands,  Satan  had  slain  ; 
and  after  their  marriage,  his  father  Tobit  recovers  his  sight." 
In  other  words,  Clement  simply  abridges  a  well  known  narrative 


262  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

without  the  slightest  expression  of  opinion  as  to  the  source  from 
which  it  originated.  The  book  of  Tobit  was  a  part  of  the  general 
body  of  Jewish  literature,  and  as  such  is  introduced  by  the 
father.  But  what  puts  it  beyond  all  doubt  that  Clement  did  not  con- 
fine himself,  in  this  passage,  as  you  would  have  us  to  suppose,  to 
the  canonical  books,  the  very  next  sentence  to  the  last  which 
you  have  quoted  refers  to  the  fourth  hook  of  Esdras,  (which 
Rome  declares  to  be  apocryphal,)  and  mentions  a  fact  which  is 
recorded  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  that  fabulous  production. 
Clement  attributes  to  Esdras  a  renovation  of  the  sacred  oracles, 
in  evident  allusion  to  the  story  that  the  books  of  the  law  had 
been  burnt  and  were  miraculously  restored  after  the  captivity. 
"Esdras  afterwards" — these  are  the  words  of  the  Father* — 
'*  Esdras  afterwards  returned  to  his  country  and  by  him  we 
achieved  the  redemption  of  the  people  and  the  recension  and  re- 
neical  oi  i\\e  inspired  oracles." 

Your  second  passage,  which  may  be  found  in  the  nineteenth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  the  Stromata,  is  little  more  than  a 
quotation  from  Clement  of  Rome's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians; 
and  as  you  have  already  insisted  upon  it  as  found  in  the  apos- 
tolic father,  I  need  not  here  repeat  the  answer  which  has 
already  been  given.  That  Susannah — a  fact  to  which  you 
attach  no  small  degree  of  importance — should  be  named  in  con- 
nection with  Moses,  Miriam,  and  Esther,  is  no  more  surprising 
than  that  Socrates  should  have  been  lauded  as  a  martyr  and 
honored  as  a  prophet  of  the  Logos  of  God. t 

4.  I  see  nothing  in  any  of  the  extracts  which  you  have  given 
from  Tertullian,  that  can  possibly  be  tortured  into  the  semblance 
of  an  argument.  Without  insisting  on  the  point  which,  I  think, 
is  susceptible  of  an  easy  demonstration,  that  some  of  the  pas- 
sages in  which  you  represent  him  as  quoting  the  Apocrypha, 
are,  in  fact,  citations  from  the  canonical  books,  it  is  sufficient 
to  observe  that  he  drops  not  a  single  expression  from  which  it 

Ka£  ^era  hjc6pa  tij  rriv  Trarpcjav  yrjv  ava^evyvvai,   6i  ov  yiverai  t)  a-oXvTpioais  £ci 
\ao\}  Kai  0  roiv  OcoTrvewTCJv   avayvoipitTnoi   Kai   avaKUivianos   'Xoytojp.  I.  16.       Ireiiseus 

also  endorsed  the  same  story.      Contra  Hcsres,  Lib.  iii.  c.  21.     Cf.  Euseb.  H. 
E.  V.  8. 

t  Strom,  i.     Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  i.  5. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  263 

can  be  necessarily  inferred  tliat  he  believed  these  works,  however 
freely  he  might  use  them,  to  be  entitled  to  equal  veneration  and 
respect  with  the  undisputed  canon  of  the  Jews.  If  he  appeals 
to  Wisdom  and  Baruch  under  the  names  respectively  of  Solomon 
and  Jeremiah,  it  is  only  in  consequence  of  the  title  of  the  books. 
There  is,  in  fact,  as  much  evidence  that  he  deferred  to  the 
fourth  book  of  Esdras  as  canonical  authority,  as  you  have  been 
able  to  adduce  in  favor  of  the  documents  which  Rome  has 
appended  to  the  word  of  God.  In  the  Treatise  De  Cultu  Femi- 
narum,  there  occurs  in  the  third  chapter  an  evident  allusion  to 
the  apocryphal  story,  which  the  fathers  seem  to  have  received 
without  suspicion,  of  the  miraculous  restoration  of  the  Jewish 
books,  after  the  return  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  by  the 
agency  of  Esdras,  *'  Omne  instrumentum  "  is  the  language  of 
Tertullian,  '*  omne  instrumentum  Judaica3  Literature;  per  Esdram 
constant  restauratum."  Every  instrument  of  Jewish  Literature 
was  restored  hy  H&dras. 

The  expressions,  octt//  Domini  alii,  which  may  be  found  near 
the  beginning  of  the  Tract  De  Prescriptione  Ilaereticorum,  seem 
to  have  been  suggested  by  a  corresponding  phrase  in  the  eighth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras,  Domine  cujus  oculi  elevati 
(v.  20).  Very  nearly  an  exact  quotation  from  this  same  fabu- 
lous production,  is  introduced  again  in  the  sixteenth  section  of 
the  fourth  book  of  the  Work  against  INIarcion,  Loquere  in  aures 
audientium. 

It  is  susceptible  of  the  clearest  proof,  that  Tertullian  did  not 
scruple  to  refer  to  a  book  as  scripture,  which  he  knew  at  the 
time  not  to  be  inspired.  So  that  if  your  argument  had  been  even 
stronger  than  it  is — if  you  had  produced,  as  you  have  not,  cita- 
tions from  his  writings,  in  which  this  distinguished  father  applies 
to  the  Apocrypha  the  usual  appellations  of  the  canonical  books, 
your  conclusion  could  not  have  followed  from  your  premises.  On 
two  separate  occasions,  Tertullian  denominates  the  Pastor  of 
Ilermas  scripture,  and  yet,  in  one  of  the  instances,  in  the  very 
connection  in  which  he  refers  to  it  under  this  honorable  title,  he 
distinctly  testifies  that  it  possessed  no  Divine  authority,  but  was 
universally  rejected  as  apocryphal  and  spurious.*  So,  again, 
*  The  second  passage  from  Tertullian  I  shall  insert  entire.    Sed  cederem  tibi, 


264  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  his  Dissertation  upon  Baptism,  he 
speaks  of  a  composition  which  he  declares  to  be  spurious,  as  the 
scripture  which  an  Asiatic  Presbyter  had  forged  under  the  name 
of  Paul.* 

The  author  of  the  Poetical  Books  against  Marcion,  which 
pass  under  the  name  of  Tertullian,  seems  to  have  entertained  not 
the  slighted  suspicion  that  this  "  Prince  of  the  Latin  Church" 
called  into  question  the  integrity  or  completeness  of  the  Hebrew 
canon.  He  informs  us  that  the  twenty-four  wings  of  the  Elders 
in  the  Apocalypse,  were  symbolical  representations  of  the  twenty- 
four  books  which  compose  the  Old  Testament.  The  number 
twenty-four  being  doubtless  made,  as  we  learn  from  Jerome  that 
it  was  sometimes  done,  by  separating  Lamentations  from  the 
prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  and  Ruth  from  the  book  of  Judges." 

"  Alarum  numerus  antiqua  volumina  signal,      j|. 
Esse  satis  certa  viginti  quatuor  ista 
Quae  Domini  cecinere  vias  et  tempora  pacii-." 

Carm.  Advers.  Marc.  lib.  iv. 

It  may  be  gathered  as  an  important  inference  from  the  exam- 
ination which  has  just  been  instituted  into  the  leading  documents 

si  Scriptura  Pastoris,  quae  sola  moechos  amat,  divino  instrumento  meruisset  in- 
cidi,  si  non  ab  omni  concilio  ecclessiarum  vestrarum  inter  apocrypha  et  faiso 
judicaretur.— De  Pudicit.  c.  10.  Tertullian  wrote  thiswhen  he  was  a  Montan- 
ist.  That,  however,  is  of  no  importance,  since  the  critical  purpose  for  which  it 
is  adduced  is  to  show  that  he  may  call  a  book  scripture  and  yet  believe  it  to  be 
apocryphal.     The  passage  may  be  thus  turned  into  English  : 

"  But  I  would  yield  the  point  to  you,  if  the  scripture  of  the  Shepherd,  which 
is  favorable  to  adulterers,  deserved  to  be  placed  in  the  Divine  Testament  ;  if  it 
were  not  reckoned  apocryphal  and  spurious  by  every  assembly  even  of  your 
own  churches." 

*  Quod  si  Pauli  perperam  Scriptura  legunt,  exemplum  Theclae  ad  licentiam 
mulierum  docendi  tingendique  defendunt,  sciant  in  Asia  Presbyterum,  qui  earn 
Scripturam  constnxxit,  quasi  titulo  Pauli  de  suo  cumulans,  convictum  atque  con- 
fessurn,  id  se  amore  Pauli  fecisse,  loco  discessisse.  But  if  any  read  the  writ- 
ings falsely  attributed  to  Paul,  and  defend  the  right  of  women  to  preach  and 
baptize  by  the  example  of  Thecla,  let  them  know  that  the  Asiatic  Presbyter 
who  forged  that  scripture,  adorning  his  performance  with  the  title  of  Paul, 
having  been  convicted  of  the  thing,  and  having  confessed  that  he  did  it  out  of 
love  to  Paul,  left  his  place." 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    KEFUTKD.  i2(i5 

of  the  second  century — that  all  writings,  professedly  reliirious, 
whether  human  or  supernatural  in  their  origin,  were  referred  by 
the  fathers  to  a  common  class,  and  embraced  under  a  common 
appellation.  This  was  done  in  order  that  a  broad  line  might  be 
drawn  between  the  monuments  of  pagan  literature  and  the  pro- 
ductions of  those  who  sought  to  be  governed  by  the  fear  of  God. 
The  sacred  and  profane  were  not  to  be  promiscuously  blended 
or  confounded — the  acknowledged  compositions  of  the  sons  of 
light,  uninspired  though  they  might  be,  were  not  to  be  included 
in  the  same  category  with  the  vain  discussions  and  false  philo- 
sophy of  the  children  of  darkness.  They  belonged  to  a  different 
department  of  thought — a  department  possessing  much  in  com- 
mon with  those  Divine  books  which  the  Spirit  had  given  as  a 
rule  of  faith.  Whatever  was  written  with  a  pious  attention  and 
promised  to  promote  holiness  of  life,  was  consequently  ranked  in 
the  same  class  with  the  inspired  Scriptures  to  distinguish  them 
effectually  from  the  whole  body  of  heathen  literature.  When 
the  fathers,  therefore,  use  such  terms  as  you  have  insisted  to  be 
a  proof  of  inspiration,  they  meant  no  more  than  that  the  writings 
which  they  quote  were  suited  to  develope  the  graces  of  the  Spirit, 
and  to  quicken  diligence  and  zeal.  They  were  religious  books, 
religious  in  opposition  to  profane,  books  which  might  not  only 
be  perused  without  detriment,  but  studied  with  positive  advan- 
tage. Divine  Scripture  and  such  like  expressions,  were  terms, 
to  speak  in  logical  language,  denoting  a  subaltern  genus  which 
embraced  under  it  two  distinct  species,  inspired  and  uninspired 
productions.  These  species  were  distinguished  from  each  other 
by  the  difference  of  their  origin  ;  but  as  they  agreed  in  the  com- 
mon property  of  being  subservient  to  the  interests  of  piety,  and 
by  this  common  property  were  alike  removed  from  all  other 
works,  they  received,  in  consequence,  a  common  name.  There 
must  have  been  some  phraseology  by  which  even  an  uninspired 
literature  that  the  faithful  might  commend,  could  be  discrimi- 
nated from  heathen  letters  ;  and  as  the  leading  difference  be- 
tween them  was,  that  one  was  Divine  in  its  tendencies  and  ob- 
jects, while  the  other  was  sensual,  earthly,  and  devilish,  no  terms 
could  possibly  have  been  selected  more  appropriate,  than  those 
which  were  actually  applied  by  the  early  fathers  tollermas,  Bar 


266  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

nabas,  and  Clement,  as  well  as  to  Wisdom,  Tobit,  and  Baruch. 
Let  the  reader  then  bear  in  mind  that,  according  to  the  usage  of 
the  primitive  church,  Divine  Scripture  was  a  generic  term,  in- 
cluding in  its  meaning  whatever  might  be  profitably  read — what- 
ever was  fitted  to  foster  devotion,  and  to  inspire  diligence  in  the 
Christian  life,  and  the  language  of  the  fathers  will  present  no  dif- 
ficulty. 


LETTER   XVII. 

Testimony  of  the  writers  of  the  third  century  considered — Cyprian,  Hippolytus,  Apostolical 

Constitutions. 

The  same  erroneous  principles  of  criticism,  which  betrayed  . 
at  once  the  weakness  of  the  cause  and  the  ignorance  of  the 
advocate,  in  your  appeal  to  the  writings  of  the  second  century, 
have  signally  misled  you  in  the  inferences  which  you  have  drawn 
from  what  you  call  the  testimony  of  the  third  century.  Cyprian, 
bishop  of  Carthage,  with  whom  you  commence  your  account  of 
this  period,  and  to  whom  you  seem  willing  to  defer  with  abso- 
lute submission,  will  be  found,  I  apprehend,  when  so  interpreted 
as  to  be  consistent  with  himself,  to  afford  no  more  countenance 
to  the  adulterated  canon  of  Rome  than  his  celebrated  master, 
TertuUian.*  It  deserves  to  be  remarked,  though  I  shall  not 
insist  upon  the  fact  in  the  argument,  that  several  of  the  passages 
which  you  have  culled  from  the  writings  of  this  distinguished 
father,  are  taken  from  a-treatise  upon  which,  in  the  judgment 
of  scholars,  no  certain  reliance  can  be  placed.  The  Testimonies 
against  the  Jews  to  Q,uirinus,  even  by  those  who  allow  it  to  be 
genuine,  is  yet  acknowledged  to  be  so  largely  corrupted,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  distinguish  what  is  truly  Cyprian's  from  what 
has  been  subsequently  added  by  others.t     A  work  of  this  sort 

*  Nunquam  Cyprianum  absque  Tertulliani  lectione  unam  diem  praeterisse, 
ac  sibi  crebre  dicere  solitum  ;  Da  inagistruni  TertuUianum  significans. —  Vita 
perJac.  Pamilium. 

*  Stephen  Baluze  had  paid  great  attention  to  the  study  of  Cyprian,  and 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  267 

should  evidently  "  be  quoted,"  as  Lardner  has  justly  observed, 
*'  with  some  particular  caution  ;"  you,  however,  have  used  it  as 
freely,  certainly  with  as  little  appearance  of  suspicion,  as  if  you 
had  been  perfectly  assured  that^every  sentence,  line,  and  word, 
stood  precisely  as  they  came  from  the  hands  of  the  venerable 
bishop  of  Carthage. 

1.  Your  favorite  Tobias  is  the  first  book  which  you  attempt 
to  canonize  by  the  assistance  of  this  father,  and  verily,  you 
could  not,  in  the  whole  range  of  the  Apocrypha,  have  selected 
a  work  more  admirably  adapted  to  furnish  a  complete  refutation 
of  your  whole  process  of  argument.  It  is  admitted  that  Cyprian 
has  repeatedly  quoted  this  document,  and,  in  some  instances, 
quoted  it  as  Divine  Scripture.  But  that  this  does  not  amount 
to  an  admission  of  its  canonical  authority — that  it  implies  no 
more  than  that  the  work  was  historically  true  in  its  statements, 
and  suited  to  promote  the  purposes  of  piety,  is  plain  from  the 
fact,  that  while  he  acknowledges  it  to  be  Divine  Scripture,  he 
virtually  asserts  that  it   was  not  inspired.     He  draws  a  broad 

possessed  twenty-one  manuscripts  of  this  particular  treatise.  His  opinion,  there- 
fore is  entitled  to  great  weight.  "  If,"  says  he,  "  tiiere  are  any  passages  in  the 
writings  of  Cyprian,  of  which  it  cannot  be  certainly  said  that  they  belong  to  him, 
that  can  be  chiefly  asserted  of  the  books  of  Testimonies  to  Quirinus.  Several 
manuscripts  have  more  than  the  common  editions,  some  less.  Since,  there- 
fore, it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  what  is  truly  Cyprian's  from  what  has  been 
subsequently  added  by  his  admirers,  we  have  retained  what  we  found  in  an- 
cient manuscript  copies.  Only  the  two  first  books  exist  in  the  Spirensian  edi- 
tion, the  old  Venetian,  and  in  that  which  Rembold  edited.  Erasmus  published 
the  third  from  a  written  code.x  of  the  monastery  of  Gamblour.  I  have  twenty- 
one  ancient  copies  of  these  books,  of  which,  however,  only  five  have  the  two  first 
books." 

Si  qua  sunt  loca  in  operibus  sancti  Cypriani,  de  quibus  pronuntiari  non  pos- 
eit  ea  certe  illius  esse,  id  vero«in  primis  asseri  potest  de  libris  Testimoniorum  ad 
Quirinum.  Plures  enim  codices  plus  habent  quam  vulgatae  editionis,  alii  minus. 
Itaque,  quoniam  impossibileest  discernere  ea  quae  vere  Cypriani  sunt  ab  iis  quae 
post  iUum  a  studiosis  addita  sunt,  nos  retinulmus  ea  quae  reperta  nobis  sunt 
in  antiquis  e.xemplaribusmanuscriptis.  Porro  duo  tantum  priores  libri  extant  in 
editione  Spirensi,in  veteri  Veneta,  et  in  ea  quam  Remboldus  procuravit.  Eras- 
mus tertiam  emisit  ex  codice  scripto  monasterii  Gemblocensis.  Habui  autem 
unum  et  viginti  exemplaria  Vetera  horum  librorum,  quorum  tamen  quinque  ha- 
bent tantum  libros  duos  priores. — Baluz.  Not.  ad  Crjprian.  p.  596,  as  quoted  in 
Lardner,  vol.  iii.  pp.  17,  18.  (marg.) 


'2&Si  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

distinction  between  it  and  the  unerring  testimony  of  revealed 
truth  :  and  althoucrh  he  was  willinor  to  accommodate  its  senti- 
ments,  breath  its  devotion,  and  commend  its  morality,  he  was 
too  well  acquainted  with  its  nature  and  origin,  to  depend  upon 
it  for  a  proof  of  doctrine.  Accordingly  in  the  Treatise  de  Opere 
et  Eleemosynis,  having  cited  and  briefly  expounded  the  passage, 
"prayer  is  good  with  fasting  and  alms"  (Tob.  xii.  8),  he  pro- 
ceeds :*  "  The  angel  Raphael  reveals,  and  manifests,  and  confirms 
the  truth  that  our  petitions  are  rendered  effectual  by  alms — that 
our  lives  are  redeemed  from  peril  by  alms — and  that  by  alms 
our  souls  are  delivered  from  death.  Nor  do  we  allegre  these 
things,  dearest  brethren,  so  as  not  to  prove  what  the  angel  Ga- 
briel has  said  by  the  testimony  of  truth.  In  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  the  truth  of  the  fact  is  established;  and  that  souls  are 
delivered  by  alms,  not  only  from  the  second,  but  also  from  the 
first  death,  is  confirmed  alike  by  fact  and  experience."  He 
then  appeals  to  the  history  of  Tabitha,  and  to  divers  passages  in 
the  canonical  Scriptures,  as  the  proo/"of  what  he  had  cited  from 
the  book  of  Tobit.  What  is  this  but  a  virtual  declaration  that 
this  document,  however  valuable  on  other  accounts,  was  no  part 
of  the  rule  of  faith,  and  could  not  be  adduced  to  bind  the  con- 
science with  the  authority  of  God?  Cyprian  appeals  to  it,  but 
instead  of  relying  upon  it,  as  he  does  upon  the  Acts,  Gospels, 
Genesis,  and  Proverbs,  proceeds  to  confirm  the  sentiment  which 
he  had  quoted,  by  what  he  denominated  the  testimony  of  trtith. 
This  phrase,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  connection,  evidently 
means  the  testimony  of  Him  who  cannot  lie  ;  who,  embracing  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future  in  a  single  glance  of  unerring 
intuition,  is  emphatically  the  Father  of  lights.  His  law,  accord- 
ing to  the  Psalmist,  is  the  fountain  of  truth,  and  His  testimony 
must  be  regarded  as  the  seal  of  truth.*  When  Cyprian,  there- 
fore, applies  this  expression,  as   he   unquestionably  does  in  the 

*  Revelat  angelus  et  manifestat,  et  firmat  eleemosynis  vitam  de  periculis 
redemi :  eleemosynis  a  morte  animos  liberari.  Nee  sic,  fratres  charissimi,  ista 
proferrimus,  ut  non  quod  Raphael  angelus  dixit  veritatis  testimonio  comprobe- 
mus.  In  Actibus  Apostoloium  facti  tides  posita  est,  et  quod  eleemosynis  non 
tantum  a  secunda,  sed  a  priora  morte  animae  liberentur,  gestae  et  impletae  rei 
probalione  compertum  est. — Dicei  Cypriani,  dc  Opere  et  Eleemosynis. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  269 

present  instance,  to  the  plain  declarations  of  the  Acts,  the  Gos- 
pels, Genesis,  and  Proverbs,  he  can  mean  nothing  less  than  that 
these  books  are  to  be  received  as  authoritative  standards  of 
faith  ;  and  when  he  distinguishes  the  teaching  of  Tobit,  as  we 
see  that  he  has  done,  from  the  testimony  of  truth,  what  other 
idea  can  be  conveyed  but  that  this  work  is  not  entitled  to  a 
place  in  the  category  of  inspired  Scriptures?  We  have,  conse- 
quently, his  own  statements  against  your  inference.  You  main- 
tained that  he  deferred  to  Tobit  with  the  same  submission, 
veneration,  and  respect  which  he  awarded  to  the  books  that  are 
not  disputed  ;  he,  on  the  other  hand,  assures  us  that  while  he 
believed  it  to  be  Divine  Scripture,  a  godly  and  edifying  book, 
he  still  regarded  it  merely  as  a  human  production,  which,  so  far 
from  being  competent  to  regulate  our  faith,  needed  itself  to  be 
confirmed  by  a  higher  sanction  than  the  authority  of  its  author — 
even  the  testimony  of  essential  truth. 

2.  You  next  attempt  to  show  that  Cyprian  received  Wisdom 
and  Ecclesiasticus  as  inspired  compositions;  and  your  proof 
is  derived  from  the  fact  that  he  repeatedly  quotes  them  under 
the  name  of  Solomon,  and  through  Solomon  attributes  them  to 
the  Holy  Spirit.  He  seldom  speaks  of  them  absolutely  and 
without  qualification  'as  the  testimony  of  God,  but  whenever  he 
alludes  to  them  as  the  work  of  the  Sprit,  it  is  plainly  on  the 
supposition  that  they  were  actually  written  by  Solomon.  In 
other  words,  the  evidence  is  precisely  the  same  that  he  held 
them  to  be  Solomon's,  as  that  he  held  them  to  be  supernaturally 
inspired.  He  introduces,  for  instance,  a  passage  from  the  third 
chapter  of  Wisdom — the  first  upon  your  list — in  these  words  :* 
**  By  Solomon  the  Holy  Spirit  hath  shown  and  forecautioned 
us,  sa\'ing" — and  again,t  ''Thus  also  the  Holy  Spirit  teaches 
us."  So  too  Ecclesiasticus  is  quoted  in  these  words  4  **  Solo- 
mon also,  guided  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  testifies  and  teaches." 

It  is  evident  from  these  passages — and  they  are  the  strongest 


*  Per  Salomonem  spiritus  sanctus  ostendit  et  piccarit,  dicens. — De  Exhort. 
Mars.  c.  12. 

t  Sed  et  per  Salomonem  docet  spiritus  sanctus. — De  MortalHate 

t  Sed  et  Salomon  in  ppiritu  sancte  constitutus  testaturet  docet. — Epist  C^4. 


270  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

which  can  be  produced — that  it  is  only  a  conditional  inspiration 
which  Cyprian  attributes  to  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom.  If  he 
believed  that  they  were  written  by  Solomon,  then  he  unquestion- 
ably received  them  as  inspired.  Now  you  have  confidently  as- 
serted the  consequent  of  this  proposition,  but  have  nowhere 
condescended  to  furnish  us  with  any  portion  of  the  evidence  by 
which  the  antecedent  is  established.  Every  Protestant  is  willing 
to  concede  that  if  these  books  were  the  productions  of  Solomon, 
they  deserve  to  be  inserted  in  the  sacred  canon.  But  the  real 
question  is,  whether  or  not  Solomon  was  their  author.  If  there 
is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  Cyprian  believed  them  to  be  his, 
then  there  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  he  believed  them  to 
be  inspired.  They  came  from  God,  in  the  view  of  this  father, 
only  on  the  supposition  that  they  came  from  Solomon.  But 
where  is  the  proof  that  Cyprian  believed  them  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  him?  On  this  point,  which  is  vital  to  your  argument,  you 
have  left  us  completely  in  the  dark.  If  it  can  be  shown,  how- 
ever, that  he  did  not  believe  that  Solomon  was  their  author,  then 
he  furnishes  no  testimony  whatever  in  behalf  of  their  inspiration; 
since  we  can  never  reason  in  hypothetical  propositions,  from  the 
removal  of  the  antecedent  to  the  establishment  or  removal  of  the 
consequent.  Cyprian  says  that  they  were  inspired  zy  Solomon 
wrote  them  ;  but  where  does  he  say  that  Solomon  wrote  them? 
Unless  he  has  said  so,  your  conclusion  is  drawn  from  no  premi- 
ses which  he  has  supplied.  Now  I  maintain  that  there  is  satis- 
factory evidence  that  neither  Cyprian  nor  any  other  inltelligent 
father  really  believed  that  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  were  the 
compositions  of  Solomon.  Augustine  has  distinctly  informed  us 
that,  though  they  were  usually  ascribed  to  him,  it  was  not  because 
they  were  reputed  to  be  his,  but  because  they  were  imitations  of 
his  style.  In  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  seventeenth  book  of  the 
Treatise  de  Civitate  Dei,  after  having  mentioned  the  three  books, 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiasticus  and  Canticles,  which  were  universally 
acknowledged  to  have  been  written  by  Solomon,  he  adds  :*  "  Two 

*  Proplietasse  etiam  ipse  reperitur  in  suis  libris,  qui  tres  recepti  sunt  in  auc- 
toritatem  canonicam,  Proverba,  Ecclesiastes,  et  Canticum  Canticorum.  Alii 
vero  duo,  quorum  unus  Sapientia,  alter  Ecclesiasticus  dicitur,  propter  eloquii 
nonnuUum  similitudinem,  ut    Salomonis  dicantur  ;  obtinuit   consuetudo:  non 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  271 

other  books,  one  of  which  is  called  Wisdom,  the  other  Ecclesias- 
ticus,  have  also  from  custom,  on  account  of  some  similarity  of 
style,  received  their  titles  from  the  name  of  Solomon.  That  they 
are  not  his,  however,  the  more  learned  entertain  no  doubt."  So 
also  in  his  Speculum  de  Libro  Sapientia  :*  "Among  these," 
that  is,  the  books  written  before  the  advent  of  Christ  which  the 
Jews  rejected  from  the  canon,  but  which  the  Christian  church 
treated  with  respect,"  "  among  these  are  two,  which  by  many 
are  called  by  the  name  of  Solomon,  on  account,  as  I  suppose,  of 
a  certain  similarity  of  style.  For  that  they  are  not  Solomon's, 
admits  of  no  question  among  the  more  learned.  It  does  not  in- 
deed appear  who  was  the  author  of  the  book  of  Wisdom,  but 
that  the  other,  which  we  call  Ecclesiasticus,  was  wTitten  by  a 
Jesus  who  was  surnamed  Sirach,  must  be  acknowledged  by  all 
who  have  read  the  book  through." 

If  now  Cyprian  were  among  the  more  learned  doctors  of  the 
church — and  you  have  given  him  a  distinguished  place  in  your 
introductory  eulogium  on  his  character — he  did  not  believe,  ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  Augustine,  that  these  disputed  books 
were  written  by  Solomon ;  and,  therefore,  there  is  not  a  particle 
of  evidence  that  he  held  them  to  be  inspired.  In  fact,  it  is  alto- 
gether incredible  that  any  critic  of  ordinary  intelligence  could 
be  persuaded  that  an  inspired  man  was  the  author  of  a  work 
which  not  only  bore  upon  its  face  the  name  of  another  individu- 
al, but  contained  in  its  preface  a  satisfactory  account  of  its  oriiri- 
nal  composition  in  one  language  and  its  subsequent  translation 
into  another.  Here  is  a  book  which  professes  to  have  been 
written  by  one  Jesus.     The  proof  of  its  inspiration  turns  upon 


autem  esse  ipsius,  non  dubitani  doctiores. — S.  Augustini  Episcopi  de  Civitate 
Dei,  liber  xvii.  cap.  20. 

*  Sed  non  sunt  omittendi  hi,  quos  quidem  ante  Salvatoris  adventum  con- 
stat esse  conscriptos,  sed  eos  non  receptos  a  Judaeis,  recipit  tamen  ejusdem  Sal- 
vatoris Ecclesia.  In  his  sunt  duo  quis  Salomonis  a  pluribus  apellantur,  propter 
quamdani,  sicut  existimo  cloquii  similitudinem.  Nam  Salomonis  non  esse, 
nihil  dubitant  quique  doctiores.  Nee  tamen  ejus  qui  Sapientiae  dicitur,  quisnam 
sit  auctor  apparet.  Ilium  vero  alterum,  quem  vocamus  Ecclesiasticum,  quod 
Jesus  quidam  scripserit,  qui  cognominatur  Sirach,  constat  inter  eos  qui  eundem 
librum  totum  legenint. — S.  Ausustini  Episcopi  Speculum  de  libro  Ezechielis. 


27'2  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

the  fact  that  it  was  not  written,  as  it  professes  to  be,  by  Jesus, 
but  by  Solomon — that  is,  it  can  only  be  proved  to  be  inspired, 
bybeing  proved  to  open  with  a  lie — in  other  words,  it  is  shown  to 
be  the  testimony  of  infallible  truth  by  being  shown  to  contain  a  pal- 
pable falsehood.  The  ridiculous  evasion  of  Bellarmin,  that  Je- 
sus diligently  collected  and  reduced  into  a  volume  the  maxims 
of  Solomon,  so  that  Ecclesiasticus  might  with  propriety  be  at- 
tributed to  each,*  is  refuted  by  the  Prologue  which  is  prefixed 
to  the  book.  It  is  there  stated  that  the  original  author,"  when 
he  hud  much  given  himself  to  the  reading  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets  and  other  books  of  our  (Jewish)  fathers,  and  had  gotten 
therein  good  judgment,  was  drawn  on  also  himself  to  write  some- 
thing pertaining  to  learning  and  wisdom."  This  looks  very  lit- 
tle like  collecting  and  digestingHhe  maxims  of  Solomon.  Eccle- 
siasticus evidently  purports  to  be  an  original  work,  suggested, 
not  by  the  study  of  Solomon  alone,  but  by  the  whole  canon  of 
the  Jews.  It  is  true  that  it  is  an  imitation,  and  in  many  instan- 
ces a  very  successful  imitation,  of  the  pointed  and  sententious 
style  of  the  wise  monarch  of  Israel. 

Besides  the  similarity  of  style,  which  was  perhaps  the  origin- 
al ground  for  attributing  this  work  to  Solomon,  two  other  rea- 
sons may  be  assigned  for  quoting  both  it  and  Wisdom  under 
his  name,  as  we  see  that  Cyprian  has  done.  In  the  first  place  it 
was  a  rapid  and  convenient  mode  of  "reference.  The  name  of 
Solomon  was  a  part  of  the  professed  title  of  the  book  of  Wisdom, 
but  as  it  was  notorious  that  he  was  not  the  author  of  it,  it  would  have 
been  silly  hypercritical  nicety  always  to  have  resorted,  in  refer- 
ring to  it,  to  the  awkward  periphrasis — the  author  of  the  book 
called  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon.  To  quote  it  by  its  title  implied 
no  belief  that  its  title  was  just.  Clemens  Alexandrinus  appealed 
to  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras  under  the  name  of  the  Prophet 
Ezra.  Baruch  is  frequently  cited  under  the  name  of  Jeremiah: 
and  the  Preaching  of  Peter  was  accommodated  by  Clement  under 
the  name  of  the  Apostle. 

*  At  Epiphanius  in  haeresi  Anomarorum,  et  alii  nonnuUi  auctorem  libri  hu- 
jus  Jesum  Sirach  esse  voluiit.  Respondeo,  facile  potuisse  fieri,  ut  Jesus  Sirach 
sententias  Salomonis  a  se  diligenter  collectas  in  unum  volumen  redegerit,  ita, 
uterque,  auctor  dici  poterit. — Be  Verho  Dei,  lib.  i.  cap.  14. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  273 

As  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  on  account  of  its  striking  anal- 
ogy  to  the  compositions  of  Solomon,  was   in   all  probability  de- 
signated by  his  name — ^just  as  we  call  a  great  poet  a  Homer,  or 
a  great  conqueror  another  Alexander — the  fathers  would  feel  no 
hesitation  in  adopting   a  common   and   popular  title,  especially 
when  the  work  itself  contained  an  effectual  antidote  against  all  er- 
roneous impressions.     "  In  the  gospel  of  Luke,"  says  Rainold,* 
*'  Christ  is  called   the  son  of  Joseph,  as  likewise  in  the  gospel 
of  John.     Luke,    however,   elsewhere    explains  it,  saying    that 
Christ  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  as  it  was  supposed,  and  Philip  says 
to  Nathanael,  we  have  found  Jesus  the  son  of  Joseph  of  whom 
Moses  in  the  law,  and  the  prophets  have  written.     Yet  Moses  in 
the  Law  adumbrated  Christ  by  Melchisedec,  without  father   as 
a  man,  without  mother  as  God  :  and  Isaiah,  the  prince  of  pro- 
phets says,  Behold,  a  virgin  shall  conceive,  and  bring  forth  a  son. 
Hence  it  is  evident  that  Christ  as   a  man  had  no  father ;  and  so 
Philip  might  have   known   that  Joseph  was  not,  in  reality,  the 
father   of  Jesus.     If  he  did   know  it,  he  used  the  phrase  only 
for  convenience  of  reference.     But  if  Philip  were  ignorant  of  the 
fact,  the  blessed  Virgin  certainly  knew  that  Jesus  had  been  con- 
ceived   by  the  power    of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  yet   she   says,  in 
the  gospel  of  Luke  :  Behold,  thy  father  and  I  have  sought  thee 
sorrowing.     Though  she  knew  that  Joseph  was  not  the  father  of 
Christ,  yet  she  calls  him  his  father  :  in  the  first  place,  because 

*  Apud  Lucam  Christus  Joseph!  filius  dicitur,  similiter  et  apud  Johannem. 
Quanquam  Lucas  alibi  id  explicat,  dicens  Christum  fuisse  filium  Josephi  ut  pu- 
tabatur,  et  Philippus  ad  Nathanaelem  invenimus  (inquit)  Jesum  fiUum  Joseph,  de 
quo  scripsit  Moses  in  lege  adumbravit  Christu  per  Melchisedecum  sine  patre  ut 
hominem,sine  matre  ut  Deum.  Et  prophetarum  princeps  Esaias,  Ecce,  (inquit) 
virgo  concipiet  et  pariet  filium,  unde  patet  Christum  ut  hominem  non  habuisse 
patrem,  adeoque  poterat  PhiUippus  prius  intellexisse.  Josephum  non  fuisse  vere 
patrem  Jesu.  Si  intellexerit  ergo  ad  commoditatem  significationis  sic  loquutus 
est,  sed  ignoravit  id  Philippus,  sciebat  certe  beata  virgo  eum  a  spiritu  sancto  con- 
ceptum  esse  ipsa,  tamen  apud  Lucam,  Ecce  (inquit)  pater  tuus  ego  cruciati  quaere- 
bamus  te.  Cum  sciret  non  fuisse  Josephum  Christi  patre,  appellat  tunc  Josephum 
patrem,  primo  quia  sic  putabatur  esse,secundo  propter  reverentiam,  qua  usus  est 
Christus  erga  Josephum,  tanquam  patrem,  eodem  modo  verisimile  est  patres,  cum 
citarint  libros  Sapientiae  et  Ecclesiastici  sub  nomine  Salomonis,  uses  esse  eo  nom- 
ine, non  quod  Salomonis  esse  putarint,sed  significandi  commoditatem  sequutos, 
appellationem  vulgo  usitatam  retinuisse. — De  Libris  ApocryphiSj  Proelectio  xix. 

13 


274  ROMAmST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

he  was  reputed  to  be  so,  and  in  the  second,  on  account  of  the 
filial  reverence  with  which  Christ  uniformly  treated  Joseph.  In 
the  same  way  it  is  likely  that  the  fathers,  in  citing  the  books  of 
Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  under  the  name  of  Solomon,  did  so, 
not  because  they  imputed  them  to  him,  but  for  convenience  of 
reference  they  retained  a  common  and  popular  designation." 
To  this  may  be  added,  as  the  same  learned  writer  has  intima- 
ted, that  they  used  the  name  of  Solomon  to  conciliate  greater 
reverence  and  esteem  for  the  sentiments  which  they  had  chosen 
to  accommodate.  These  books  were  so  strikingly  analogous  to 
those  of  Solomon,  that  they  might  be  studied,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  fathers,  with  safety  and  advantage.  Their  authors,  whoever 
they  were,  breathed  the  spirit  of  devotion,  and  hence  their  pro- 
ductions were  applauded,  as  the  modern  church  warmly  com- 
mends Owen,  Charnock,  and  Scott.  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus, 
Tobit,  and  Judith,  were  regarded  as  good  elementary  works  of  re- 
ligion, which  might  be  placed  with  success  in  the  hands  of 
novices,  to  prepare  them  for  the  higher  mysteries  of  the  faith. 
Such,  at  least,  is  the  testimony  of  Athanasius.*  In  his  famous 
Festal  Epistle,  after  having  given  a  catalogue  of  the  inspired 
books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  he  adds  :  "  There  are  also 
other  books  beside  these,  not  indeed  admitted  to  the  canon,  but 
ordained  by  the  Fathers  to  be  read  by  such  as  have  recently 
come  over  (to  Christianity),  and  who  wish  to  receive  instruction 
in  the  doctrine  of  piety — the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  Wisdom 
of  Sirach,  and  Esther,  and  Judith,  and  Tobit,  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Apostle,  as  it  is  called,  and  the  Shepherd." 

But  whether  the  explanations  which  have  been  given  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  Fathers  quote  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus 
be  satisfactory  or  not,  one  thing  is  absolutely  certain — that  their 
ascribing  them  to  Solomon,  in  incidental  references,  is  no  proof 
whatever  that  they  really  believed  them  to  be  his.  Bellarmin 
appeals  to  Basil   as  having  cited  Ecclesiasticus  in  this  way,  and 

*  Etrrt /cat  erepa  Pi/SXia  tovtcov  £^cl>9£v,  ov  Kavovi^ojiCva  jiev,  T£Tvno)jjiiva  ieiraparoiv 
TTarepoyv  avayivcocxKEadai  rots  apri  -rrpoasp^ofispoii  kui  (Sov'Xojjevois  KaTrj-x^EicrOai  tov  ttis 
cvaepeias  Xoyov  Ho<pia  ^oXojjtuvroi,  Kai  (xo^ia  ^ipa^,  kui  EcrBj^p,  kui  lovSeO^Kat  To^iaSy 
Kai  fii^a'xr)  KoXovfievr]  roiv  AroorroXcJi/,  Kai  o  -Koinriv.    Athanasius,  Epistola  FestallS.^ 

0pp.  i.  p.  961,  ed.  Bened. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  215 

yet  Basil  unequivocally  asserts  that  only  tlwee  books,  Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes,  and  Canticles,  were  written  by  Solomon  :  Jerome, 
too,  has  been  guilty  of  the  same  method  of  citation,  and  has  just 
as  strongly  affirmed  that  no  other  books  can  be  properly  ascribed 
to  Solomon,  but  those  which  are  found  in  the  Jewish  canon.* 
It  is  unnecessary  to  adduce  more  examples.  One  single  instance 
is  sufficient  to  maim  a  conclusion  drawn  from  the  only  circum- 
stance which  can  be  tortured  into  any  thing  like  evidence  that 
Cyprian  or  any  other  Father  imputed  the  documents  in  question 
to  the  pen  of  Solomon.  It  will  now  be  remembered  that  the 
leading  proposition  of  your  argument  was  this — if  Cyprian  be- 
lieved that  Solomon  was  the  author  of  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wis- 
dom, he  believed  them  to  be  inspired.  It  was  incumbent  on  you 
to  prove  the  antecedent,  which  you  have  not  so  much  as  attempt- 
ed to  do.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  have  shown  that  it  is  false ;  or, 
at  least,  that  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  in  its  favor. 
The  argument  then  stands  in  this  way  :  If  Cyprian  believed  that 
Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom  were  written  by  Solomon,  he  believ- 
ed them  to  be  inspired.  But  he  did  not  believe  that  they  were 
written  by  Solomon.  Here  in  my  opinion  the  syllogism  halts — 
claudicat  consecutio — and  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  are  left 
precisely  where  they  were  before  you  appealed  to  the  testimony 
of  Cyprian. 

The  claims  of  Baruch  and  the  additions  to  Daniel,  to  a  place 
in  the  canon,  you  endeavor  to  vindicate  by  the  same  process  of 
argument  which  we  have  seen  to  be  worthless  in  the  case  of 

*  Ita  videtis  judicia  cani  posse  negati  consequutionem  illius  argumenti : 
patres  hos  libros  a  Salomone  scriptos  putariint  ergo  sunt  ah  eo  scripti.  Nunc 
istius  enthymematis  antecedens  examinemus.  Patres  existimarunt  hos  libros  a 
Salomone  scriptos,  ad  quod  confirmandum  primum  enthymenia  pertinet ,  patres 
citarunt  hos  libros  sub  nomine  Salomonis,  ergo  existimarunt  ab  eo  scriptos,  hie 
quoque  claudiat  consequutio,  in  illis  eniin  qui  libmm  Sapientiae  sub  Salomonis 
nomine  cittirunt,  fuit  Basilius,  qui  tamen  apertc  inficiatur  eum  a  Salomone  scrip- 
turn.  Ubi  tres  oranino  sacros  libros  Salomoni  adscribit,  rpeii  naaaq  eyvumcv  » 
EaXo/iwvros  raj  rrpayi^taTciai.  Hieronymus  etiam  ex  eoruni  numcro  est,  qui  eccle- 
siasticum  sub  nomine  Salomonis  citant.  At  alius  est  idem  Hieronymus,  ubi 
tres  libros  a  Salomone  scriptos  decit  Fertur  (inquit)  alius  qui  a  Siracide  scriptus 
est,  Salomonis  ;  adhuc  alius  ipcvScTTiypafos,  qni  Sapientia  Salomonis  inscribitur. 
De  Libris  Apocrypltis,  Pra^lectio  xviii. 


276  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom.  Because  Cyprian  has  quoted  the  one 
under  the  name  of  Jeremiah,  and  the  other  under  the  name  of 
Daniel  ;  that  is,  because  he  has  referred  to  the  books  by  their 
notorious  and  ordinary  titles,  you  would  have  us  to  believe  that 
he  really  looked  upon  these  venerable  prophets  as  the  authors 
of  the  documents  in  question.  The  futility  of  such  reasoning 
has  already  been  sufficiently  exposed  :  and,  therefore,  without  far- 
ther ceremony,  we  may  dismiss  the  testimony  of  Cyprian  in  behalf 
of  these  works,  as  having  no  existence  but  in  your  own  mind. 

4.  His  quotations  from  the  Maccabees  are  no  more  remarkable 
than  a  quotation  which  he  has  made  from  the  third  book  of  Es- 
dras  :  and  if  his  conviction  of  the  historical  credibility  of  the 
narrative  in  the  one  case  is  sufficient  to  canonize  the  books, 
his  full  and  cordial  accommodation  of  a  sentiment  in  the  other, 
must  be  equally  valid  for  the  same  purpose.  The  truth  is,  the 
argument  is  stronger  in  behalf  of  Esdras,  since  Cyprian  not  only 
quotes  it,  but  quotes  it  in  the  very  same  form  in  which  Christ 
and  his  Apostles  were  accustomed  to  cite  the  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament.  "  Custom  vv'ithout  truth,"  says  he,*  "is  only  an- 
tiquity of  error :  wherefore,  having  abandoned  error,  let  us 
follow  truth,  knowing  that  truth  says  in  Esdras — as  it  is  written — 
*  truth  endureth  and  is  always  strong  :  it  liveth  and  conquereth 
for  evermore.'  " 

II.  In  what  you  call  the  testimony  of  Hippolytus  and  Dionysi 
us,  you  have  presented  us  with  nothing  which  requires  an  answer. 
They  quote  and  comment  on  passages  contained  in  the  disputed 
books  ;  but  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  any  thing  can  be  gathered 
from  a  fact  of  this  sort,  but  the  existence  of  the  works  in  the 
age  of  the  writers,  and  the  knowledge  and  probable  approbation 
of  their  contents.  But  you  were  truly  bold  to  insist  on  what  is 
called  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  as  evidence  in  your  favor. 
It  is  true,  that  the  Apocrypha  are  quoted  in  this  collection,  but 
it  is  not  true  that  the  citations  which  occur  imply  that  there  was 


*  Nam  consuetude  sine  veritate,  vetustas  erroris  est :  propterea  quod  relicto 
errors  sequamur  veritatem,  scientes  quia  et  apud  Esdram  Veritas  dicit,  sicut 
scriptum  est :  Veritas  et  manet  et  invalescit  in  aetemum,  et  vincit  et  obtinet  in 
saecula  saeculorum.     Epistola  74. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  277 

any  Divine  authority  in  the  writings  from  which  they  were  made. 
On  the  contrary,  we  have  in  the  fifty-seventh  chapter  of  the 
second  book  a  catalogue  or  list  of  the  books  which  were  di- 
rected to  be  read  in  the  churches :  and  not  a  syllable  is  whis- 
pered concerning  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  Tobit,  Judith,  or  any 
of  the  works  which  Rome  has  added  to  the  canon — a  pregnant 
proof  that  to  quote  a  book  and  to  believe  it  inspired  are  two  very 
different  things.  The  only  books  which  are  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  the  Old  Testament,  are  the  Pentateuch,  Joshua, 
Judges,  Kings,  Chronicles — the  return  from  Babylon  by  Ezra — 
that  is,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  Esther,  David,  Solomon,  Job  and 
the  sixteen  Prophets.*  Here,  then,  is  the  canon  of  the  Apostoli- 
cal Constitutions  ;  and  though  it  is  a  document  which  is  notori- 
ously spurious,!  yet  as  you  have  chosen  to  appeal  to  its  author- 
ity, I  hope  that,  in  this  matter,  you  will  abide  by  its  decision. 


LETTER   XVIII. 


Testimony  of  the  Fourth  Century  considered. — Council  of  Nice. — Councils  of  Hippo  and 
Carthage. — Testimony  of  Augustine — Ephrem  the  Syrian — Basil — Chrysostom — Ambrose. 

You  open  the  testimony  of  the  fourth  century  with  the  Coun- 
cil of  Nice.  It  is  wholly  immaterial  to  the  argument  whether  I 
despise  its  decisions|  or  reverence  its  decrees,  since  the  only  ques- 

*  A.vayivo}iJKCTO)  ra  Mwfftwj  Kai  \r)aov  tov  ^avri'  ra  twv  KpiTCJV  kui  tcov  0aei'X£(tSv' 
TU  T(ov  Tiapa\enrofi€V(i)v  Kai  Tr]i  eiravoSov'  irpoq  rovroii  ra  tov  Iw/?  kui  tov  YaoXoiicovos 
Kai  ra  to)v  CKKaiScKU  ■rrpo(paT(ov'  ava  ovo  6t  yci'Oftcvov  avayvuxTjiaToyVj  ETcpos  tis  tov 
Aa!3i6  ipaWcTU)  vfivovg.  "  Let  him  (the  reader)  read  the  books  of  Moses,  and  of 
.Toshua  the  son  of  Nun,  the  books  of  Judges,  Kings,  and  Chronicles,  and  those 
concerning  the  return  from  the  captivity  ;  and  beside  these,  the  books  of  .Tob, 
Solomon,  and  the  sixteen  prophets;  and  two  readings  having  been  made,  let 
another  cliant  the  Psalms  of  David." 

t  For  a  clear  and  satisfactory  dissertation  upon  the  value  of  the  Apostoli- 
cal Constitutions,  see  Lard ner,  vol.  iv.  p.  194,  et  secj. 

t  "  As  this  may  be  one  of  the  Councils  you  so  unremittingly  despise."  A. 
P.  F.,  Letter  VIL 


278  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

tion  before  us  has  reference  to  the  canon,  which,  whether  right 
or  wrong,  it  believed  to  be  Divine.  I  may  observe,  however, 
that  while  I  embrace  its  admirable  creed  with  cordial  acquies- 
cence, I  cannot  but  regret  that  so  distinguished  and  venerable  a 
body  should  have  sanctioned  the  principle  of  religious  persecu- 
tion, and  indirectly,  if  not  positively,  endorsed  the  odious  doc- 
trine, that  pains,  penalties,  and  civil  disabilities  were  appropriate 
instruments  for  promoting  uniformity  of  faith.  The  age  of  Con- 
stantine  is,  no  doubt,  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  church  upon 
which  Romanists  love  to  linger.  Then  were  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  that  secular  authority  and  that  joyous  and  imposing 
pomp  of  ceremonial  which  subsequently  enabled  the  Man  of  Sin 
to  tread  upon  the  necks  of  kings,  to  bind  their  nobles  with  fet- 
ters of  iron,  and  to  banish  all  that  was  pure  and  spiritual  from 
the  temple  of  God. 

"  Ah,  Constantine  !  of  how  much  ill  was  cause, 
Not  thy  conversion,  but  those  rich  domains 
That  the  first  wealthy  pope  received  of  thee." 

1.  But  discarding  all  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  Council, 
and  of  the  peculiar  corruptions  of  the  age  in  which  it  was  con- 
vened, let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  matter  in  hand ;  and  en- 
deavor to  ascertain  whether  the  wickedness  and  folly,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Scriptures,  were  perpetrated  at  Nice,  which,  upwards 
of  twelve  hundred  years  afterwards,  formed  a  fit  introduction  to  the 
atrocities  of  Trent.  To  discover  the  opinions  of  a  council,  the  sim 
plest  method  is  to  appeal  to  the  acts,  the  authentic  proceedings  of 
the  body  itself:  but  as  in  the  creed,  canons,  and  synodical  epis- 
tle, the  only  clear  and  unquestionable  monuments  of  the  doings 
of  Nice  that  have  survived  the  ravages  of  time,  not  a  single  hint 
is  given  touching  the  books  which  the  Fathers  received  as  in- 
spired, you  have  been  obliged  to  resort  to  collateral  and  indirect 
evidence,  and  that  of  the  vaguest  kind.  The  testimony  upon 
which  you  have  relied,  is  a  passage  of  Jerome,  and  a  few  quota- 
tions found  in  the  work  of  an  obscure  scribbler,  Gelasius  Cyzi- 
cenus.  In  replying  to  your  arguments,  I  shall  reverse  the  order 
in  which  you  have  marshalled  your  witnesses,  and  begin  with 
Gelasius. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  279 

This  writer  has  given  us  a  history  of  the  Council  of  Nice, 
written  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  body  had  been  dis- 
solved, collected  from  documents  of  which  nothing  is  known  with 
certainty,  and  consequently  nothing  can  be  pronounced  with  con- 
fidence. He  pretends  to  have  preserved  the  discussions  and  de- 
bates which  transpired  in  the  Synod  betwixt  the  orthodox  and 
the  Arians ;  but  speeches  reported  under  such  circumstances 
are  evidently  entitled  to  small  consideration.*  Worthless,  how- 
ever, as  his  history  is,  you  have  appealed  to  it  as  possessing,  upon 
this  subject,  "  some  value."  "At  the  time,"  you  inform  us, 
*'  when  Gelasius  wrote,  there  were  many  monuments  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Nice  still  extant,  which  have  since  perished.  The  senti 
ments  of  the  Fathers  could  be  easily  ascertained,  and  it  is  utterly 
incredible  that  if  they  were  unanimously  opposed  to  the  inspira- 
tion of  any  books  of  the  Old  Testament  save  those  in  the  Jewish 
canon,  he  would  have  dared  them  to  assert  the  contrary,  or  to 
put  in  their  mouths  expressions  directly  opposed  to  what  they 
would  have  used."  Let  this  be  granted,  and  where  is  the  proof 
that  Gelasius  attributed  to  the  orthodox  any  sentiments,  or  "put 
into  their  mouths  "  any  speeches  inconsistent  with  a  cordial  re- 
jection of  the  whole  Apocrypha  from  the  list  of  inspired  compo- 
sitions ?  In  the  passages  which  you  have  adduced,  he  simply 
represents  the  Fathers  as  quoting  the  book  of  Baruch  under  the 
name  of  Jeremiah,  and  the  book  of  Wisdom  under  the  name  of 
Solomon.  Now  it  is  perfectly  conceivable  that  they  might  have 
appealed  to  these  works,  in  their  arguments  against  the  Arians, 
as  setting  forth  the  sentiments  of  God's  ancient  and  chosen  peo- 
ple, upon  the  matter  in  dispute,  without  implying,  or  intending  to 
imply,  that  their  declarations  were  to  be  received  as  authoritative 
statements  of  truth.  Their  object  might  have  been  to  show  that 
the  church,  under  the  former  dispensation,  was  as  far  removed 
from  Arianism,  as  under  the  latter.  These  books  were  legiti- 
mate sources  of  proof  as  to  the  actual  creed  of  the  Jews,  or  at 
least  a  part  of  the  nation,  in  the  age  of  the  writers,  and  there  was 


*  The  reader  may  form  some  conception  of  the  value  of  this  historian  from 
the  "  admonitio  ad  Lectorum "  prefixed  to  his  work  in  Labbaeus  and  Copart, 
vol,  ii.  p.  103. 


280  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

consequently  no  impropriety  in  using  them,  as  a  probable  expo- 
sition of  the  national  faith.  In  fact,  they  have  been  used  in  mod- 
ern times  for  precisely  the  same  purpose,  in  the  able  work  of 
Allix,  entitled  The  Judgment  of  the  Jewish  Church  against  the 
Unitarians.  *' We  make  use  of  their  authority,"  says  he,  "not  to 
prove  any  doctrine  which  is  in  dispute,  as  if  they  contained  a 
Divine  Revelation,  and  a  decision  of  an  inspired  writer,  but  to 
witness  what  was  the  faith  of  the  Jewish  Church  in  the  time 
when  the  authors  of  those  Apocryphal  books  did  flourish."* 

It  is  hence,  by  no  means,  certain  that  the  Fathers  of  Nice, 
if  indeed  they  quoted  the  Apocrypha  at  all,  intended  to  sanction 
the  inspiration  of  the  works.  That  they  referred  to  Baruch 
under  the  name  of  Jeremiah,  and  to  Wisdom  under  the  name  of 
Solomon,  proves  no  more  than  that  these  were  the  ordinary  and 
familiar  titles  of  the  books.  If,  however,  you  insist  on  the  pro- 
position that  nothing  was  quoted  against  the  Arians  which  was 
not  regarded  by  the  council  as  inspired,  and  admit  that  Gelasius 
is  a  fit  witness  of  what  was  quoted,  your  argument  will  prove  a 
little  too  much.  This  writer  testifies  that  the  Fathers  cited  two 
grossly  spurious  documents — not  only  cited  them,  but  cited  them 
as  Scripture,  and  cited  them  apparently  to  prove  a  doctrine.  In 
the  eighteenth  chapter  of  the  second  book  of  his  history,  he  ex- 
hibits at  length  the  reply  of  the  bishops  to  the  Arian  exposition 
of  Proverbs  viii.  22  :  "  The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning 
of  his  ways,  before  his  works  of  old."  In  the  course  of  the  reply, 
which  was  intrusted  to  Eusebius,  these  words  occur.*  ''  Enough 
has  been  said,  as  it  appears  to  me ;  and  the  proofs  have  clearly 

*  See  AUix's  Judgment  of  the  Jewish,  Church,  &c.,  c.  v.  p.  53. 

*  \Kava  eivai  fxoi  Sokei  ra  ^tj^^OevTa.  /cat  at  aTioSei^eii  Trapearricav,  w  ^iXoao^E^ori  o 
vios  rov  Qeov  eoTiv,  o  Kai  ttjv  zv  11o\oi>mvti  ti  \oyi<TTiKr)v  (xocpiav  Kriaag,  Kai  iravra  ra 
KTiCTUy  Kai  OVK  cpyaXcioy,  iva  Se  coi  <xa<pecT£pav  Tt]v  aXrjQr]  tcov  xpayfiardiv  uttoSsi^iv 
TrapaaTri(TO)[jiev,  kul  ra^iov  eXdwfjtcv  eiri  tov  vofiov  tov  irpay^aros,  Kai  rug  Oecjpias  avTov, 
Ta  £K  rr]s  ypaipr]^  Xe^wjjlcv.  yLcWuiv  o  Trpo<pT]Tr]S  Mwff/jj  e^ievai  tov  0ioi'y  ws  yeypa-Krai  ev 
/Sj/JXm  ava\i^xp£o)s  Mwo-fwj,  irpoaKaXeaaiiEvos  Irjaovv  viov  Navrj,  Kai  Sia^EyonEvog  irpof 
avTOv,  Ecpri'  Kai  npoEOEaaai  to  jxe  o  0cof  tTjjo  KUTaPoXrjg  Koa^iov,  Eivai  [xe  ttjs  SiadriKTjs  av- 
Tov  jiEaiTriv.  Kai  Ev  /?i/?X(:o  \oywv  nvaTiKwv  Mwaecoj,  aVTog  Mwo->7j  irpoEnTE  nEpi  tov 
AapiS  Kai  2oXo/;wi'7-oj.  GelasH  Historia,  lib.  ii.  c.  18.  For  a  particular  account 
of  the  apocryphal  book  called  Assumption  of  Moses,  see  Fabricius  Cod.  Pseud. 
V.  T.  torn.  i.  p.  R39. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  281 

shown,  O  philosopher,  that  the  Son  of  God  was  the  former  of  the 
rational  wisdom  spoken  of  by  Solomon,  and  of  all  the  creatures, 
and  was  not  a  mere  instrument.  But  in  order  to  exhibit  the  ex- 
position of  this  matter  in  a  clearer  light,  and  to  come  more 
speedily  to  the  sense  of  the  passage,  we  will  declare  certain 
things  from  the  Scriptures.  Moses,  the  prophet,  when  about  to 
die,  as  it  is  written  in  the  book  of  the  Assumption  of  Moses, 
called  to  him  Joshua,  the  son  of  Nun,  and  thus  addressed  him: 
*  God  foresaw,  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  that  I  should 
be  the  mediator  of  his  testament,  and  in  the  book  of  the  mystic 
speeches  of  Moses,  Moses  himself  spake  beforehand  of  David  and 
Solomon.'  " 

Here  are  two  books,  both  of  them  confessedly  apocryphal, 
one  called  the  assumption  of  Moses,  the  other  his  mystic  speech- 
es, which  the  historian  Eusebius,  in  the  name  of  all  the  bishops, 
is  represented  by  Gelasius  as  employing  under  the  title  of  Scrip- 
ture against  the  anonymous  champion  of  Arianism.  Now,  you 
must  either  admit  that  Nice  held  these  works  to  be  inspired,  or 
deny  that  their  citation  of  a  book  as  Scripture  is  any  proof  that 
the  Fathers  received  it  as  inspired.  If  you  take  the  first  propo- 
sition, and  maintain  that  Nice  canonized  these  books,  why  has 
Rome  rejected  them  1  Upon  what  authority  is  the  decision  of 
the  first  general  council  set  at  naught  and  despised  ?  Upon 
what  grounds  do  you  concur  with  Nice  in  receiving  Judith, 
Baruch,  and  Wisdom,  and  refuse  your  assent  when  you  have  pre- 
cisely the  same  evidence  that  it  sanctioned  the  inspiration  of 
these  legends  of  Mos^  1  But  you  cannot,  as  a  consistent  Ro- 
manist, admit  that  the  assumption  of  Moses  was  treated  as  canon- 
ical at  Nice.  If  not,  then  its  quotation  of  a  book  is  no  proof 
that  the  work  was  held  to  be  inspired,  and  you  have  consequently 
lost  your  labor  in  proving  that  it  quoted  Baruch,  Judith,  and 
Wisdom.  It  deserves,  however,  to  be  remarked,  that  if  you  had 
succeeded  in  your  design,  you  would  have  sapped  the  foundation 
of  the  principal  excuse  which  Bellarniin  offers  for  the  heresy  of 
Jerome,  in  rejecting  all  of  the  Apocrypha,  with  the  exception  of 
Judith,  from  the  canon.  *     "I  admit,"  says  he,   **  that  Jerome 

*  Atlinitto  igitur  Ilieronymnm  in  ea  fuisse  opinione.  quia  nondum  generale 

13* 


•282  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

was  of  this  opinion,  because  as  yet  no  general  Council  had  de-  j 
termined  any  thing  concerning  any  of  these  books,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Judith,  which  Jerome  afterwards  received."  And  yet, 
according  to  you,  a  general  Council  had  determined  something. 
Baruch  and  Wisdom  were  put  upon  the  same  footing  with  Ju- 
dith. Thus  Priest  contradicts  Priest  and  Jesuit  devours  Jesuit. 
2.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  testimony  of  Jerome.  In  his  pre- 
face  to  the  Book  of  Judith,  he  observes  :  "  But  because  the 
Council  of  Nice  is  read  to  have  counted  this  book  in  the  num- 
ber of  Sacred  Scriptures,  I  have  complied  with  your  request  or 
rather  demand."  *  It  will  be  observed  here  that  Jerome  does 
not  state  the  fact  upon  his  own  authority,  he  was  not  even  born 
when  the  Council  of  Nice  was  assembled  ;  but  upon  the  author- 
ity of  a  nameless  writer,  whose  book  it  does  not  appear  had  ever 
been  seen  by  himself.  "  It  is  read,"  says  he ;  but  where  and  by 
whom?  To  these  questions  the  Father  furnishes  no  manner  of 
reply.  We  have  then  not  Jerome,  but  an  anonymous  scribbler, 
of  whom  nothing  is  known  but  his  obscurity,  testifying  to  the 
reception  on  the  part  of  Nice  of  the  book  of  Judith.  Com- 
pletely, therefore,  without  foundation  is  the  bold  statement  of 
Bellarmin,  that  Jerome  opposed  the  authority  of  Nice  to  the 
opinion  of  the  Jewish  Church,  and  was  himself  a  witness  that  the 
Nicene  Synod  had  received  the  book  of  Judith  into  the  Canon 
of  Scripture. t  That  somehody,  no  one  knows  who,  had  some- 
where, no  one  knows  where,  read  or  heard  that  this  was  the  case, 

concilium  de  his  libris  aliquid  statuerat,  excepto  libro  Judith,  quem  etiam  Hier- 
onymus  postea  recepit. — Bellar.  de  Verbo  Dei,  lib.  i.  cap.  10. 

*  Sed  quia  hunc  Librum  synodus  Nicaena  in  numero  S.  Scripturarum  legi- 
tur  computasse  acquievi  postulationi  vestraB,  iinmo  cxactioni. — S.  Hier.  Praf. 
in  Lihr.  Judith. 

t  Librum  Judith  egregium  testimonium  habere  a  synodo  Nicaena  1.  Om- 
nium synodorum  generaliura  prima  et  celeberrima,  testatur  S.  Hieronymus  prae- 
fatione  in  Judith.  Ac  ne  forte  Kenilius  dicat  librum  Judith  sanctum  esse,  sed 
non  plenae  auctoritatis  ad  fidei  dogmata  confirmanda  notanda  sunt  verba  S. 
Hieronymi:  asserit  enim  sanctissimus  Doctor,  apud  Hebraeos  librum  Judith 
numerari  in  Sanctis  libris,  qui  tamen  non  sint  idonei  ad  dogmata  fidei  compro- 
banda:  deinde  huic  Hebrarorum  sententiae  opponit  Nicaenae  synodi  auctorita- 
tem  :  igitm-  teste  Hieronymo,  Nicasna  synodus  librum  Judith  ita  retuUt  in 
numerum  sacrorum  librorum,  ut  eum  idoneum  esse  consuerit  ad  fidei  dogmata 
confirmanda. — Bellar.  de  Verbo  Dei.  lib.  i.  cap.  13. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  283 

is  the  sum  and  substance  of  what  Jerome  asserts — a  precious 
testimony  truly  ! 

1.  That  Jerome  himself  did  not  believe  his  anonymous  wit- 
ness— that  he  referred  to  the  matter  simply  as  a  rumor  and  not 
as  a  fact,  *  may  be  gathered   from  his  own  account   of  the  book 
of  Judith.     In  his  preface  to  the  books  of  Solomon   he  says, 
'*  The  church  indeed  reads  the  book  of  Judith,  but  does  not  re- 
ceive it  among   the  canonical  Scriptures."!     Again,  in  the  Pro- 
logus  Galeatus — **  the  book  of  Judith  is  not  in  the  canon. "J     If 
he  believed  that  the  Council  of  Nice  truly  represented  the  faith 
of  the   church,  and   yet  believed  that,  according  to  the  faith  of 
the  church,  the  book  of  Judith  was  not  canonical,  he  must  have 
believed  that  the  nameless  author  to  whom  he  alludes  had  either 
ignorantly  or  wilfully  lied.     There  was  no  alternative.     If  this 
author  told  the  truth,  Judith  was  canonical,  and  the  church  re- 
ceived  it  as  such  ;  but  Judith  was  not  canonical,    says  Jerome, 
and  the  church  did  not  receive  it  as  such  :  therefore,  this  author, 
could  not  have  spoken  the  truth.     This  reasoning  can  be  evaded, 
only  by   saying,  that  Nice  did  not   represent  the   faith  of  the 
church,  that  is,  that  the  318  Bishops  who  were  assembled  there, 
did  not   know  the  books  which  were  generally  received  as  in- 
spired— a  supposition  too  absurd  to  receive  a  moment's  atten- 
tion. 

2.  It  is  susceptible  of  the  clearest  demonstration,  that  the 
prominent  actors  in  the  Synod  of  Nice,  received  neither  Judith, 
nor  any  of  the  books  which  Protestants  reject,  as  a  part  of  the 
canon  ;  a  fact  which  is  wholly  inexplicable,  if  Jerome's  witness 
is  worthy  of  credit.  Eusebius,  who,  according  to  Gelasius,  was 
more  than  once  the  organ  of  the   Council,   and  who  certainly 

*  Erasmus  and  Slapleton  so  understood  the  matter.  Erasmus  says: — Non 
affirmat  Hieronymus  approbatum  fuisse  hunc  librum  Judith  in  synodo  Nicaena, 
sed  ail,  in  numero  estliterarum  Legiturcomputasse. — Erasm.  in  Cetis.  Prcpfat. 
Hie.ron.  Stapleton  says  : — Hieronymus  hoc  do  synodo  Nicaena  tantum  exeama 
referre  videtur.  Synodus,  inquit,  Legiturcomputasse,  nam  alibi  aperte  dubitat. 
— Lib.  ix.  Princip.  c.  12. 

t  Librum  Judith  legit  quidem  Ecclesia,sed  eum  inter  canonicas  Scripturas 
non  recipit. — .S.  Hier.  Prcef.  in  Libr.  Salom. 

\  Liber  Judith  non  est  in  canon.e — S.  Hier.  in  prol.  gal 


384-  ROMANIST    ARGUxMENTS    FOR    THE 

must  have  known  all  of  importance  that  transpired  in  the  body, 
has  not  only  left  no  intimations,  in  any  of  his  writings,  that  Ju- 
dith was  so  conspicuously  honored,  but  uniformly  treats  the 
whole  Apocrypha  as  disputed  and  uninspired  compositions.  In 
the  twelfth  chapter  ot  the  sixth  book  of  his  Ecclesiastical  His- 
tory, he  speaks  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and  of  Jesus  the  Son 
of  Sirach,  as  works  which  were  not  admitted  into  the  canon.* 
In  the  second  book  of  his  Chronicles,  t  according  to  the  ver- 
sion of  Jerome,  he  distinguishes  betwixt  the  Maccabees  and  the 
inspired  records  of  the  Jews,  and  places  the  former  in  the  same 
category  with  the  writings  of  Josephus  and  Julius  Africanus  ; 
and  expressly  states  that  they  were  not  received  among  Sacred 
Scriptures.  "From  the  time  of  Zerubbabel,"  he  states  in  the 
eighth  book  of  the  Demonstratio  Evangelica,  |  ''  to  the  time 
of  the  Saviour,  no  Divine  book  was  published."  And  Jerome 
informs  us  that  he  pronounced  the  additions  to  Daniel  to  be  to- 
tally destitute  of  Divine  authority .§ 

Athanasius,  another  prominent  member  of  the  Council  of 
Nice,  expressly  rejects  the  Apocrypha  from  any  claim  to  inspira- 
tion. He  speaks  of  Ecclesiasticus,  Wisdom,  Tobit,  the  additions 
to  Esther,  and  Judith,  as  valuable  books  for  beginners  and  those 
who  were  recently  converted  to  Christianity,  but  as  forming  no 
part  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture.  It  was  the  peculiar  prerogative 
of  the  twenty-two  books  which  the  Jews  admitted  and  which 
Protestants  receive,  according  to  him,  to  be  the  fountains  of  sal- 
vation— the  infallible  source  of  religious  truth. || 

*  K.£^prirai  S'  £v  avroig  kui  raig  airo  TOiv  avriXtyntviov  ypa^Mv  fjiaprvpiats,  rrii  re 
XsyoiJEvrig  SoXo^coVros  (TOipias,  Kai  Tr)s  Irjaov  rov  Hipa^,  kui  r>js  irpos  E/?oatot)f  ema- 
ToX>7j,  TTis  re  Bapva/Sa  kui  KXc^jeitoj  kqi  lovoa.  Eusebii  Famphili  Historiae 
Eccles.  lib.  vi.  13. 

t  Hue  usque  Divinae  Scripturee  Hebrseorum  Annales  temporura  continent. 
Ea  vero  quae  posthaec  apud  eos  gesta  sunt,  exhibeo  de  Libro  MaccabESorum,  et 
Josephi,  et  Africani  scriptis. — Euseb.  Cliron.  1,  2,  juxta  versionem  S.  Hieron. 

X  Q.V  ov  Kod'  rijiiv  Svvarop  £^aKpiPa^£(Tdai'Ta  yivrjTw,  firjSe  (pepeadat  Oeiav  (Sil3\ov  e^ 
CKEivov.  Kai  fitxP'-  "^^^  '■'"  ^<>^rinpo<;  'x^povtov.     Euseb.  Demon.  Evang.  Lib.  viii. 

§  Et  miror  quosdam,  &c.,  cum  et  origines  et  Eusebius  et  ApoUinarius  alii- 
que  Ecclesiastici  viri  et  Doctores  Graeciae  has  visiones  non  haberi  apud  Hebrseos 
fateantur,  nee  de  debere  respondere  Porphyrio  pro  his  qus  nullam  scripturse 
sacrse  auctoritatem  praebeant — ^S'.  Hier.  Proem.  Com.  in  Daniel. 

II  Athanastius  as  above. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  285 

Betwixt  the  Synod  of  Nice  and  Jerome,  we  have  a  succession 
of  distinguished  writers,  Epiphanius,  Hilary,  Basil,  Gregory, 
Nazianzen,  and  Amphilochius,  together  with  the  Council  of  La- 
odicea,  all,  as  we  shall  subsequently  see,  concurring,  not  in  the 
rejection  of  Judith  only,  but  of  the  whole  Apocrypha,  from  any 
pretensions  to  canonical  authority.  None  seem  to  have  known 
or  ever  to  have  heard  that  any  such  event  took  place  at  Nice  as 
Jerome  says  had  been  somewhere  read  to  have  happened.  Is  it 
credible,  that  if  Nice  had  canonized  Judith,  all  of  these  writers, 
some  of  whom  were  members  of  the  body,  should  have  been  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  the  fact  1  How  comes  it  that  not  one  of 
them  has  alluded  to  it,  but  that  all  have  spoken  as  if  no  such  event 
had  ever  taken  place?  I  cannot  better  express  this  argument 
thap  in  the  words  of  a  distinguished  papist,  Lindanus,  the  Bish- 
op of  Rurmonde  :*  '*  If  the  Nicene  Council  held  the  book  of 
Judith  and  the  other  books  of  that  rank  to  be  canonical,  why  did 
the  Council  of  Laodicea,  eighty  years  afterwards,  omit  it?  And 
why  did  Nazianzen  make  no  mention  of  it?  St.  Hierome  seems 
to  me  to  speak  as  one  that  doubted  of  it,  unless  a  man  might  think 

*  Si  enim  Nicena  synodus  librum  Judith  cum  aliis  in  canonem  redegerat, 
cur  annis  80,  post  eum  non  accensit  Laodicena  ?  Cur  Nazianzenus  ejus  non 
meminit?  sed  legitur  computasse  (ait  Hieronymus)  qui  mihi  dubitantis  sus- 
picionem  subindicare  videtur.  Nisi  fortasse  quis  opinetur  hunc  de  libris  canon- 
icis  Nicenum  canonem  una  cum  plurimis  aliis,  minimum  (uti  equidem  arbitror) 
47.  Teste  Divo  Julio  prime  Romano  ;  hsereticorum  fraude  fuisse  accisum , 
atque  sublectum  Ecclesiae.  Cui  ne  suffragemur,cogit  pia  de  sanctissimis  patri- 
bus  in  concilio  Laodiceno  congregatis,  existimatio.  Non  illos  ea  ajtate,  qua 
canonum  scientia  imprimis  ornabat  Episcopos,  tarn  fuisse  sui  et  nominis  et  of- 
ficii oblitos,  ut  illos  aut  nescierint,  aut  desideratos  non  requisierint.  Ad  haec  si 
vere  legitur  quod  ait  Hieronymus  legi,  librum  Judith,  concilium  Nicaenum  inter 
canonicas  computasse  ;  quid  sibi  vult  quod  idem  praefatione  in  libris  salomonis 
scribit.  Ecclesiam  libros  Judith,  Tobiae,  Macca^beorum  legere  quidem,  sed 
inter  canonicas  scripturas  non  recipere,  hue  usque  Lindamus  dubitantcs  instar, 
subjungit  definientes  more,  verum  nihil  hac  de  re  in  concilio  Niceno  fuisse  de- 
finitum,  ut  existimem  invitat  quod  hunc  Laodicenum  de  scripturis  canonicis 
canonem,  una  cum  reliquis,  synodus  Constantinopolitana  sexta  in  Trullo  appro- 
barit,  quod  minime  videtur  fuisse  factura,  si  designatum  ^  318,  illis  patribus 
Nicenis  doclessimus  juxta  ac  sanctissimis  Laodiceni  aut  non  recipissent,  aut  de- 
curtassent  sacrarum  scripturarum  canonem. — Eninnldus  tie  Libris  Apocryphis, 
Prtvlpctio.  XV. 


286  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

that  this  and  m^ny  more  decrees  besides,  which  the  Council  of 
Nice  made,  were  afterwards  pared  away  from  it  by  fraudulent 
heretics :  whereunto  I  cannot  give  my  consent  for  the  religious 
honor  that  I  bear  to  the  fathers  of  Laodicea,  who  in  that  age, 
when  Bishops  knew  the  canons  of  the  church  best,  and  when  it 
was  their  great  commendation  to  be  skilful  in  them,  could  not  be 
so  far  negligent,  both  of  their  credit  and  their  duty,  as  neither  to 
know  them  if  they  were  extant,  nor  to  seek  after  them  if  they 
were  lost.  Besides,  if  that  were  true,  which,  St.  Hierome  says, 
was  read  of  the  Book  of  Judith,  that  the  Nicene  Fathers  took  it 
into  the  canon,  how  shall  we  construe  that  which  he  writes  in 
his  preface  before  the  books  of  Solomon,  '  that  though  the 
church  indeeds  reads  the  history  of  Judith  and  Tobit,  &,c.,  yet 
it  doth  not  receive  them  into  the  number  of  Canonical  Scrip- 
ture?' But  that  the  Nicene  Council  determined  nothing  in  this 
matter,  I  am  the  rather  induced  to  believe,  for  the  Sixth  General 
Council  at  Constantinople  approved  the  canon  of  Laodicea, 
which  it  would  never  have  done,  if  the  Fathers  that  met  there 
had  either  rejected  or  mutilated  the  canon  of  Nice." 

The  reasoning  of  the  Bishop,  coupled  with  the  considerations 
which  have  already  been  adduced,  seems  to  be  conclusive.  The 
first  General  Synod  of  the  Christian  church,  whatever  other  fol- 
lies it  was  permitted  to  perpetrate,  was  kept,  in  the  merciful 
providence  of  God,  from  corrupting  those  records  of  eternal  truth 
from  which  its  sublime  and  memorable  creed  may  be  most  tri- 
umphantly deduced.  A  pure  faith  has  nothing  to  apprehend 
from  unadulterated  Scriptures. 

II.  It  is  unnecessary  to  notice  what  you  have  said  of  the  Pro- 
vincial Synod  at  Alexandria,  held  in  the  year  339,  or  of  the 
General  Council  at  Constantinople,  convened  in  381.  The  prin- 
ciples of  criticism,  which  have  been  repeatedly  developed  in  the 
course  of  this  discussion,  furnish  an  abundant  explanation  of  the 
real  value  of  the  quotations  on  which  you  have  relied.  In  regard 
to  Gregory  Nazianzen,  in  particular,  through  whom  you  have  rep- 
resented the  Council  of  Constantinople  as  endorsing  the  books 
of  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom,  I  shall  have  occasion,  hereafter, 
to  show,  that  you  have  been  grossly  seduced  into  error.  His 
testimony  is  clear  and  explicit,  for  the  Jewish  canon  ;   and  if  he 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  287 

has  quoted — as  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  he  has  done — if  he 
has  quoted  the  Apocrypha  as  Scripture,  or  Divine  Scripture,  this 
fact  only  strengthens  the  position  that  such  expressions  were 
generic  terms,  comprehending  the  entire  department  of  religious 
literature  whether  inspired  or  not. 

III.  I  come  now  to  the  Councils  of  Hippo  and  Carthage, 
which,  as  their  testimony  on  this  subject  is  one,  I  shall  treat  as 
one;  and  as  my  object  is  not  to  puzzle  but  convince,  I  shall 
take  no  advantage  of  the  difficulties  which  press  the  Roman  Doc- 
tors in  determining  which  of  the  Carthaginian  Councils  it  was 
that  enacted  the  famous  decree  touching  the  canonical  books  of 
Scripture.  That  decree  is  usually  printed  in  the  collections,  as 
the  forty-seventh  canon  of  the  third  Council  of  Carthage,  held  in 
the  year  397,  and,  so  far  as  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  concerned,  is  in  these  words  :*  "Moreover  it  is  ordained 
that  nothing  beside  the  canonical  Scriptures  be  read  in  the 
church  under  the  name  of  Divine  Scripture ;  and  the  canonical 
Scriptures  are  these  :  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
Deuteronomy,  Joshua  the  Son  of  Nun,  Judges,  Ruth,  Four  Books 
of  the  Kingdoms,  two  Books  of  Chronicles,  Job,  David's  Psalter, 
Five  Books  of  Solomon,  the  Books  of  the  Twelve  Prophets, 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  Tobit,  Judith,  Esther,  Two 
Books  of  Esdras,  Two  Books  of  the  Maccabees." 

Now  the  question  is,  what  are  we  to  understand  by  the 
phrase,  "canonical  Scriptures,"  as  used  in  this  decree?  If  it 
is  synonymous  with  inspired  Scriptures,  then  indeed  you  have 
produced  a  witness  that  the  Apocrypha  are  entitled  to  Di- 
vine authority.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  means  something 
else,   something    quite    distinct   from    inspired   Scripture,   then 

*  Item  placuit,  ut  praeter  scripturas  canonicas,  nihil  in  ecclesia  legitur  sub 
nomine  divinarum  scripturarum.  Sunt  autem  canonicae  scripturcE,  Genesis, 
Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numeri,  Deuteronomium,  Jesus  Nave,  Judicum,  Ruth,  Reg- 
norum  libri  quatuor,  Paralipomenoni  libri  duo.  Job,  Psalterium  Davidicum,  Sal- 
omonis  libri  quinqne,  libri  duodecim  Prophetarum,  Isaias,  Jeremias,  Ezechiel, 
Daniel,  Tobias,  Judith,  Esther,  Esdras  libri  duo,  Machabaeomm  libri  duo.  Novi 
autem  Testament!  Evangeliorum  libri  quatuor,  Actuum  Apostolorum  liber  unus, 
Pauli  apostoli  epistolae  tredecim,  ejusdem  ad  Hebra^os  una,  Petri  apostoli  duee, 
.Toannis  apostoli  tres,  Judae  apostoli  una,  Jacobi  una,  Apocalypsis  Joannis  liber 
nnu«!. — Concilium.  Carthnsin.  iii.  cap.  48. 


288  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

your  cause,  condemned  by  the  voice  of  three  centuries,  is  left 
without  even  the  African  protection  which  you  had  vainly  hoped 
to  find  in  the  close  of  the  fourth.  Nay,  if  it  could  be  proved 
that  the  Council  of  Carthage  intended  in  this  canon,  to  enumer- 
ate the  books  which  were  held  to  be  inspired,  the  only  protec- 
tion which  Rome  could  receive  from  it  is  the  "  protection  which 
vultures  give  to  lambs."  It  is  as  much  the  interest  of  Papists  as 
of  Protestants  to  find  a  meaning  which,  without  doing  violence 
to  the  terms  that  are  employed,  shall  be  consistent  with  itself, 
and  with  the  known  opinions  of  the  age,  and  at  the  same  time 
exonerate  the  fathers  from  the  charge  of  ignorance,  folly,  and 
wickedness,  to  which,  if  it  was  their  purpose  to  draw  up  a  list  of 
the  writings  that  had  been  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  they  are 
in  some  degree  exposed.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  they  were 
foolish,  ignorant,  and  wicked,  if  they  pronounced  any  book  to  be 
inspired  without  sufficient  evidence;  and  it  is  equally  indisputa- 
ble that  no  such  evidence  could  have  been  possessed  in  behalf  of 
any  work  which  the  Church,  in  every  age  before  and  after  this 
provincial  Synod,  has  concurred  in  rejecting  as  Apocryphal. 
And  yet  a  book  which,  in  the  papal  editions  of  the  Bible,  is 
placed,  by  authority,  €2t7'a  seriem  canonicorum  lihro7-2im,  which 
has  evidently  no  claims  to  inspiration,  and  which  the  Christian 
world,  according  to  the  showing  of  Romanists  themselves,  has 
never  received  as  the  word  of  God,  is  inserted  by  Carthage  in 
its  list  of  canonical  books.  Who  can  believe,  who  can  even  con- 
ceive, that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  Fathers  to  outrage  the  sen- 
timents of  the  rest  of  Christendom,  and  to  incur  the  awful  male- 
diction of  those  who  add  to  the  words  of  Divine  Revelation  1  To 
have  perpetrated  a  deed  of  this  sort,  amid  the  light  with  which 
they  were  surrounded,  a  light  so  bright,  that  it  has  penetrated 
even  to  the  darkened  chambers  of  the  papacy,  would  have  mani 
fested  a  degree  of  impiety  and  blasphemy,  which  we  cannot 
attribute  to  a  body  of  which  Augustine  was  a  member.  You, 
however,  in  the  interpretation  which  you  have  given  of  their  for- 
ty-seventh canon,  have  charged  it  upon  them.  It  is  susceptible 
of  the  clearest  proof,  that  the  two  books  of  Esdras,  which  they 
have  mentioned  in  their  list,  include  the  third.     What,  in  the 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED   AND    REFUTED.  289 

Latin,  Bellarinin  himself  admits,*  is  denominated  the  third 
book  of  Esdras,  is,  in  the  Greek  copies  of  the  Bible,  entitled  tlie 
first.  What  is,  in  the  Latin,  ihejirst  and  second,  constitute  in 
Greek  but  one  volume,  and  are  styled  the  second  book  of  Esdras. 
So  that,  according  to  the  Greek  numeration,  the  first  and  second 
books  of  Esdras  comprehend  the  Apocryphal  third.  Bellarmin 
has  again  informed  us,+  that  at  the  time  when  the  Council  of 
Carthage  was  convened,  the  universal  Church  used  that  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible  which  Jerome  was  accustomed  to  call  the  Vul- 
gate, and  which  was  made  from  copies  of  the  Septuagint,  includ- 
ing the  additions  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews.  Hence,  the  Bibles 
of  the  Fathers  at  Carthage,  under  the  name  oi  two  hooks  of  Es- 
dras, embraced  not  only  Nehemiah  and  Ezra,  but  that  very  third 
book  of  Esdras  which  Rome  declares  to  be  Apocryphal. |     Now 

*  Nee  minor  est  difficultas  de  lib.  iii.  Esdrae  ;  nam  in  Gra^cis  codicibus  ipse 
est,  qui  dicitur  primus  Esdrae,  et  qui  apud  nos  dicuntur  primus  et  secundus,  in 
Graeco  dicuntur  secundus  Esdrae.  Quo  circa  versimile  est,  antiqua  concilia  et 
patres,  cum  ponunt  in  canone  duos  libros  Esdrae,  intelligere  nomine  duorum  lib- 
rorum  omnes  tres.  Sequebantur  enim  versionem  septuaginta  interpretum,  apud 
quos  tres  nostri  duo  libri  Esdrae  nominantur. — Bellar.  de  Verbo  Dei,  lib.  i. 
cap.  20. 

t  Utebatur  autem  eo  tempore  universa  Ecclesia  libris  sacris  juxta  eam  edi- 
tionem,  quam  S.  Hieronymus  praesatione  in  librum  Esther,  et  saepe  alibi,  vul- 
gatam  appellare  solet,  quae,  ut  ipse  ait,  Graecorum  lingua  et  Uteris  continetur. 
— Bellar.  de  Verbo  Dei,  lib.i.  cap.  7. 

X  As  the  following  extract  so  ably  refutes  Bellarmin's  evasions,  the  reader, 
I  hope,  will  excuse  its  length  : — 

Potest  autem  id  videri  falsum,  Aug-ustinum  scilicet  et  Carthaginensi  concil- 
ium adnumerasse  tertium  Esdrae  canonicis,  cum  duos  tantum  ejus  Hbros  in  ca- 
none consignando  nominent,  sed  si  penitus  introspicere  volueritis,  sub  duorum 
nomine  tertium  quoque  comprehendi  intelligeris.  Quod  ut  vobis  planum  fiat, 
principio  notandum  secus  collocari  libros  Esdrae  in  Graeca  editione  quam  in  La- 
tina.  Qui  enim  Latinis  tertius,  is  est  Graecis  primus,  qui  Latinis  primus  et  se- 
cundus, ii  Graecis  in  unum  volumen  compinguntur,  cui  nomen  Esdrae  quod 
vero  primum  et  secundum  Esdrae  unum  Graeci  numerent,  ut  Hieronymus  docet, 
inde  fieri  id  potuit,  quia  Hebrari  sic  numerant.  Quod  tertium  Esdrae  praefii- 
gant,  inde  videtur  efiectum,quia  ille  liber  historiam  paulo  alius  repetit.  Fuisse 
autem  primum  Graecis,  qui  est  Latinis  tertius,  manifesturn  est,  quod  si  teste  opus 
sitjfidem  faciat  Athanasius,  qui  in  enunieratione  librorum  duos  Esdrae  nominal, 
priorem  cujus  initium  est,  et  obtulit  Josias  Pascha,  etc.,  et  posteriorem,  cujus 
initinm  esse  dicit  in  anno  primo  Cyri,  Regis  Persarum,  etc.,  quae  duo  cum  sint 


291)  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

my  argument  is  briefly  this :  if  the  Carthaginian  Fathers  in- 
tended to  settle  the  canon  of  inspiration,  they  were  guilty  of  great 
folly  and  wickedness;  but  the  character  of  the  men,  particu- 
larly of  Augustine,  shows  that  they  were  not  liable  to  such  a 

initia  tertii  et  primi  libri,  clarissimum  inde  est,  tertium  ab  eo  primum  numera- 
tum,  secundum  et  primum  ut  secundum.  Nam  in  quod  Latinis  Athanasii  ex- 
emplaribus  in  margine  adscripsit  nescio  quis  (atqui  hoc  principium  est  capitis 
trigesimiquinti  paralipomenon)  per  imperitatem  factum  est.  Non  enim  ani- 
madvertit  ille  quisquis  fuit,  eadem  verba  exordiri  tertium  Esdras,  sed  animad- 
vertere  id  debuerat,  atque  errorem  suum  corrigere  ex  eodem  capite,  ubi  Athan- 
asius  agens  de  primo  Esdrae,  enumerat  ea  prope  omnia,  quae  sunt  in  tertio  Es- 
drae,  adscripsit  autem  ille  idem  (ut  videtur)  haec  haberi  capite  tertio  et  quarto 
libri  secundi. 

Id  eo  modo  observatum  est  in  Grsecis  Biblionim  editionibus  ;  nominatum  in 
ea  quae  Venetiisex  Aldi  ofticina  exivit,  ubi  cum  duo  tantum  habeantur  libri  Es- 
drae, primus  exorditur,  quomodo  noster  tertius,  secundus  iisdem  plane  verbis, 
quibus  Latina  editio  primum  Esdrae  inchoat.  Ita  manifestum  est  et  antiquitus 
Athanasii  tempore,  et  ab  ejus  seculo  in  Graecis  editionibus  veteris.  Testamenti 
duobus  Esdrae  libris  tertium  comprehendi.  In  quo  obiter  notandum,  doctissi- 
mos  viros  Franciscum  Vatablum,  Franciscum  Junium,et  Franciscum  Lucam,  eo 
parum  animadverto,  existimavisse  tertium  Esdrae  Graece  non  extare.  Vatablus 
quidem  tertium  Esdrae  Graece  nee  sibi  contigisse  dicit  videre,  nee  cuiquam 
quod  sciat  alteri.  Quomodo  etiam  Junius,  Herse  libros  duos,  neque  Hebraeice, 
neque  Graece  vidi  (inquit  ille)  aut  fuisse  visos  memini  legere.  Franciscus  Lu- 
cas, paulo  asseverantius  tertiiim  Esdrae  nullo  alio  sermone  extare  ait  praeterquam 
Latino.  In  quam  ille  opinione  inductus  erat  eo,  quod  neque  in  complutensibus 
exemplaribus,  neque  in  Bibliis  sequitur  Nehemiam,  sed  in  earn  partem  rejicitur, 
ubi  Apocryphi  ponentur.  Hoc  tandum  Lucas  vidit,  et  agnovit,  et  confessus  est 
se  deceptuni,  etc.,  sed  quod  ad  rem  praesentem  facit,  affirmat  ibi  Lucas,  tertium 
Esdrae  Latinorum,  esse  primum  Graecis.  Atque  hoc  est,  quod  primum  observa- 
tum volui,  proximo  loco  animadvertere  deletis  Augustinum  et  patres  Cartha- 
ginenses  in  canone  consignando,  et  alios  in  disputationibus  fuit  translatione 
Latina  e  Graeca  70,  editione  versa,  uti  consuevisse,  quod  ipse  planum  facit  ubi 
citato  illo  loco.  Et  formavit  Deus  hominem  pulverem  de  terra  :  subjungit,  sicut 
Grseci  codices  habent,  unde  in  Latinam  linguam  scriptura  ipsa  conversa  est.  Man- 
ifestius  autem  id  dicit,  ubi  rem  ex  professo  disputat.  Nam  cum  fuerint  (inquit 
Augustinus)  et  alii  interpretes,  etc.,  banc  tamen,  quae  septuaginta  est,  tanquam 
sola  esset,  sic  recipit  Ecclesia,  eaque  utuntur  Graeci  populi  Christiani,  quorum 
plerique  utrum  alia  sit  aliqua  ignorant.  Ex  hac  70,  interpretatione  etiam  in 
Latinam  linguam  interpretatum  est,  quod  Ecclesiae  Latinae  tenent,  quamvis  non 
defuerit  temporibus  nostris  presbyter  Hieronymus  homo  doctissimus,  et  omnium 
trium  linguarum  peritus,  qui  non  ex  Graeco,  sed  ex  Hebraeo  in  Latinum  eloqui- 
um  easdem  scripturas  convertit,  ac  qui  sequuntur.     Ex  ut  disertis  verbis  Augus- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  291 

charore  ;  therefore,  they  did  not  intend  to  determine  the  canon  of 
inspired  books. 

This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  the  decree 
itself  was  conditional  ;  the  church  beyond  the  sea,  as  we  gather 

tinus  non  solum  se  usum  ilia  Septuaginta  interpretum  versione  significat,  sed 
et  earn  perinde  quasi  sola  esset,  ab  Ecclesia  receptam,  et  Ecclesiam  Latinam, 
quod  tenet  id  ex  ilia  interpretatione  tenere,adeo  ut  quamvis,  Augustini  tempor- 
ibus  Hieronymus  summa  fide  ex  Hebraicis  fontibus  converteret,  Ecclesia  tamen 
praeferret  earn  editionem,  quae  ex  Graeca  70.  Lalina  facta  est.  Id  quod  et  loco 
superiore  docuit  Augustinus,  et  praecipue  in  Epistolis,  ubi  ad  Hieronyinum  sic 
scribit.  Ego  sane  te  mallem  Graecas  potius  canonicas  nobis  interpretari  scrip- 
turas,  quae  70,  interpretum  authoritate  perhibentur.  Perdurum  erit  enim,  si 
tua  interpretatio  per  multas  Ecclesias  frequentius  ceperit  lectitari,  quod  k  Graecis 
Ecclesiis  Latinae  Ecclesiae  dissonabunt,  etc.,  et  alibi  petit  a  Hieronymo.ut  in- 
terpretationem  suam  Bibliorum  e  70,  mittat.  Ideo  autem  (inquit)  desidero 
interpretationem  tuam  de  70,  ut  et  tanta  Latinorum,  qui  qualescunque  hoc  ausi 
sunt,  quantum  possumus  imperitia  careamus  :  et  hi  qui  me  invidere  putant  utili- 
bus  laboribus  tuis,  eandem  ahquando  si  fieri  potest,  intelligant,  propterea  me 
nolle  tuam  ex  Hebraeo  interpretationem  in  Ecclesiis  legi.  Ne  contra  Septua- 
ginta auctoritatem,  tanquam  novum  aliquid  proferentes,  magno  scandalo  pertur- 
bemus  plebes  Christi,  quarum  aures  et  corda  illam  interpretationem  audire  con- 
sueverunt,  quae  ab  apostolis  approbata  est.  Denique  in  libris  de  Doctrina  Chris- 
tiana, vult  ille  Latinos  codices  veteris  testamenti,  si  necesse  fuerit,  Graecorum 
auctoritate  emendandos  et  eorum  potissimum,  qui  cum  70  essent,  ore  uno  inter- 
pretate  esse  perhibentur,  etc.,  locus  consulatur.  Neque  vero  hacc  Augustinus 
solum  luculente  testatur,  sed  et  reliqui  scriptores,  qui  in  eum  commentarios 
scripserunt,  vel  de  eo  loquuti  sunt.  In  quibus  Ludovicus  vires  in  praefatione 
comment,  ait  Augustinum  versonem  70,  interpretum  ubique  adducere.  Et  in 
ipsis  commetariis  ostendit  (inquit)  olim  Ecclesias  Latinas  usas  interpretatione 
Latina  ex  70,  versa,  non  hac  Hieronymi,  ut  mirer  esse  qui  tantum  nefas  existi- 
ment  translationes  attingi,  modo  sobrie  ac  prudenter  fiat. 

Sixtus  Senensis  duas  fuisse  docet  in  Ecclesia  Latinas  editiones  V.  T.  no- 
ram  scilicet  ac  veterem.  Vetus  decidem  (inquit  ille)  vulgatae  et  communis 
nomen  accepit,  tum  quia  nullum  certum  haberet  auctorem,tum  quia  non  de  He- 
bra?o  fonte,  sed  de  Koivrj,  vel  de  Septuaginta  interpretatione  sumpta  esset,  quem 
admodum  August  18,  De  Civit.  Dei,  c.  43,  et  Hieronymus  in  praefatione  Evan- 
geliorum  testantur,  cujus  lectione  usa  est  Ecclesia  longe  ante  tempora  Hierony- 
mi, ac  etiam  multo  post,  usque  ad  tempora  Gregorii  Papae.  Nova  vero  a  Hie- 
ronymo  non  de  Graeca,  sed  de  Hebraica  veritate  in  Latinum  eloquium  versa 
est:  qua  Ecclesia  usque,  ab  ipsis  Gregorii  temporibus,  una  cum  veteri  editione 
usa  est.  Utriusque  enim  Gregorius  in  praefatione  moralium  meminit,  inquiens: 
Novam  translationem  deferro,  sed  cum  probationis  causa  me  exigit,  nunc  veter- 
rm.  novam  pro  testimonio assume :  ut  quia  sedes  Apost.  cui  aut  bore  Deo  prae- 


292  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

from  an  ancient  note,  was  to  be  consulted  for  its  confirmation] 
The  Council  of  Carthage,  then,  received  the  books  mentioned  in 
its  list  as  canonical,  provided  the  transmarine  churches  would 

fideo  utraque  utitur,  mei  quoque  labor  studii  ex  utroque  fulciatur.  Haec  apud 
Sixtum,  unde  liquet  longe  ante  tempora  Hieronymi,  ad  usque  Gregorium,  (quasi 
ad  600  annos)  in  usu  fuisse  translatione  Latinam  e  Graeca  70.  Adeoque  recte 
colligi  Augustinum  et  Carthageniensis  concilii  patres  editionem  illam  Graecam 
70,  sequutos  esse.  Quid  quod  Bellarminus  ipse  hoc  agnoscit,  veteres  sequutos 
esse  versionem  septuaginta  1  apud  quos  (inquit)  qui  nobis  Esdrse  tertius  est,  fuit 
primus,  siccine?  quomodo  ergo  te  expedies  e  laqueo  rationis  nostras?  conatur 
ille  quidem  expedire  se,  sed  haeret  ut  mus  in  pisa.  Majorem  revera  ait  esse  dif- 
ficultatem  de  tertio,  Esdrae  quam  de  quarto.  Sed  respondet,etsi  duo  libri  Grsec- 
orum  sint  nostris  tertius,  non  tamen  sequi  patres  antiquos  cum  duos  Esdrae  in 
canone  ponant,  nostras  tres  intellexisse,  quid  ita  ?  quatuor  nimirum  rationes  ad- 
hibet  e  quibus  pleraeque  non  attingunt  nostram  sententiam,  certe  nullae  labe- 
factant. 

Prima  ratio  haec  est.  Quia  Melito,  Epiphanius,  Hilarius,  Hieronymus, 
Ruffinus,  aperte  sequuti  sunt  Hebraeos,  qui  tertium  Esdrae  non  agnoscunt,  quid 
tum  1  Ergone  Augustinus  cum  duos  Esdrae  accenseat,  non  intellexit  nostras  tres  1 
quia  scilicet.  Melito,  Epiphanius,  Hilarius,  Hieronymus,  Ruffinus,  aperte  se- 
quuti sunt  Hebraeos.  Ergo  Augustinus  non  est  sequutus  editionem  Graecam 
Septuaginta  ?  perinde  ratiocinatur  ac  siquis  diceret  Socrates,  Plato,  veteres  aca- 
demici  vocarunt  Deum  ideam  boni,  etc.  Ergo  ac  Aristoteles  et  Peripateti- 
corum  schola  sic  vocavit,  si  nondum  appareat  hujus  rationis  infirmitas,  at  fa- 
cimile  apparebit  in  ratione  simtli  quam  adjungam.  Melito,  Epiphanius,  Hil- 
arius, Hieronymus  et  Ruffinus  rejecerunt  e  canone  sacrarum  Scripturarum  libros 
Sapientiae,  Ecclesiastici,  Tobiae,  Judith,  etc.,  ergo  et  Augustinus  hos  rejecit,  et 
concilium  Carthaginensi,  haec  nisi  ratio  firma  sit,  videtis  quam  infirma  sit  altera. 

Secunda  Bellarmini  ratio  ea  est  a  precibus  publicis  et  usu  Ecclesiastico  of- 
ficii. Quia  jam  diu  nihil  legitur  ex  illo  libro  in  officio  Ecclesiastico,  quid  inde  1 
An  ergo  Augustinus  cum  duos  Esdrae  libros  in  canone  numeraret,  non  intellexit 
nostras  tres  ?  aut  Augustini  tempore  a  patribus  Carthaginensibus  non  habeba- 
tur  tertius  Esdrae  in  canonicis  ]  perinde  hoc  estac  siquis  ita  ratiocinetur.  Ex- 
ulat  jam  diu  papatus  ex  Anglia,  ergo  Henrici  VI.  tempore  exulavit.  Imo  ab- 
surdior  ilia  ratio  quam  haec,  quo  proprius  abfuit  ab  aetate  nostra  Henrici  VI.  Reg- 
num,  quam  Augustini  temporae,  cum  ille  ab  hinc  non  ultra  100  annos  floruerit, 
ab  Augustino  ultra  1000  effluxerint,  quo  temporis  decursu  multa  mutari  pote- 
rant,  Bellarminus  enim  ipse  fatetur,  Augustini  tempore  monachos  tonderi  solitos 
fuisse,  suo  vadi,  potuit  tamen  simili  ratione  uti.  Jamdiii  in  usu  fuit,  ut  rede- 
rentur  monachi,  ergo  August,  tempore  non  solebam  tonderi. 

Sed  fortasse  tertia  ratio  subtilior,  que  ab  auctoritate  Gelasii  ducitur.    Is  nam- 

que  unum  tantum  Esdrae  librum  in  canone  ponit,  id  est  (inquit  Bellar.)  nostros 

uos,  optime,  conceditur  enim,  postea  rem  penitus  introspiciemus,  et  videbi- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  293 

consent.  Surely  it  could  not  mean  that  these  books  are  inspired, 
provided  the  transmarine  churches  will  agree  that  they  are  so. 
The  evidence  of  their  inspiration  was  either  complete  to  the  Coun- 
cil, or  it  was  not.  If  it  was  complete,  they  were  bound,  as 
faithful  ministers  of  Christ,  to  say  unconditionally  and  absolutely 
that  these  books  belong  to  the  rule  of  faith.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, to  have  enacted  a  conditional  decree,  was  treason 
against  truth,  and  impiety  to  God.  Why  consult  the  church 
beyond  the  sea,  in  regard  to  a  matter  which  was  unquestioned 
and  notorious  ?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  evidence  was  not 
complete  or  satisfactory,  in  regard  to  the  inspiration  of  the  books, 
why  make  a  canon,  until  doubts  were  settled,  and  difficulties 
resolved  ?  If  the  object  of  appealing  to  the  transmarine  churches 
was  to  obtain  more  light,  why  did  the  Fathers  undertake  to  act 
until  the  light  had  been  supplied  ?  It  cannot  be  pretended  that 
their  intention  was  to  procure  the  confirmation  of  the  Holy  See. 
It  is  not  the  Pope  alone,  nor  a  general  Council  that  they  proposed 
to  consult — it  was  the  church  beyond  the  sea — transmarina  ec- 
clesia — the  Bishop  of  Rome,  or  the  other  Bishops  of  those  parts, 
and  if  every  Bishop  and  Doctor  connected  with  this  church, 
with  Boniface  himself  at  their  head,  had  been  assembled  in  coun- 
cil, and  had  given  their  decision,  their  voice  would  have  been 
only  the  voice  of  a  Provincial  Si/nod,  and,  therefore  not  entitled 
to  be  received,  according  to  your  doctrine,  as  the  infallible  dic- 

mus  utrum  unum  ille  tantum  numeret.  Interim  concedant  Gelasium,  qui  vixit 
centum  annos  post  Aug.  et  Carthag.  Cone,  unum  tantum  Estlra3  lib.  in  canone 
posuisse,  quid  vero  hoc  ad  August,  et  Cartiiag.  paties  ?  An  deinde  illi  non  nu- 
merarunt  duos  1  an  duorum  nomine  nostros  tres  non  significarunt  ?  Quid  ni 
ergo  sic  ratiocinent  M.  Crassus  partib.  optimatum  favit,  ergo  C.  Marius  non 
fuit  popularis  ?  Hajc  argumenta  si  in  nostris  scholis  supponcrentur,  credo  vide- 
rentur  a  pueris,  venmi  cum  superuntur  d  Jcsuitis,  quodam  ni  {aWoT  Kpvipsui  arti- 
ficio  insolubilia  habebuntur. 

Verum  enim  vero  fortassis  artificio  Rhetorum  fimiissimam  rationem  pos- 
tremo  loco  reservavit.  Ea  erit  palmaria.  Namque  Hieronymus  (inquit  Bel- 
lanninus)  aperte  docet,  tertium  Esdrae  non  modo  non  apud  Hebrajos  haberi,  sed 
neque  apud  Septuaginta.  An  id  aperte  docet  Hier.  1  eo  certe  delapsum  esse 
Bell,  miror,  consulite  Hieron,  (videbiiis  eum  non  modo  aperte  docere,  quae  ei 
affingit  Bellar.  :  sed  nee  omnino,  imo  contrarium  statuere,  qui  consensu  anti- 
quorum,  qui  testimoniis,  e  tertio  Esdrae  persaepe  usi,  postea  mihi  pluribus  erit 
confirmandum.) — liainoldus,  de  Libris  Apocryphis,  Fraslcctio  xxviii. 


294  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

tate  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  conduct  of  the  Carthaginian  Fa- 
thers, in  passing  a  conditional  decree,  if  their  design  was  to  settle 
the  canon  of  inspiration,  is  wholly  inexplicable.  They  virtually 
say,  we  have  satisfactory  evidence  that  these  books  are  inspired, 
and  yet  it  is  not  satisfactory.  Such  egregious  trifling  cannot  be 
imputed  to  them,  and  therefore,  some  interpretation  must  be  evi- 
dently put  upon  the  canon,  which  shall  justify  their  appeal  to  a 
foreign  church. 

No  better  way  is  left  us  of  arriving  at  a  just  conception  of 
this  matter,  than  by  considering  the  testimony  of  Augustine,  who 
was  himself  a  member  of  the  Council,  and  who  may  be  presumed 
to  have  known  the  real  intentions  of  the  body.  His  opinions 
may  be  taken  as  a  true  exponent  of  the  opinions  of  the  African 
church.  This  illustrious  advocate  of  the  doctrines  of  grace,  has 
given  us  a  list  of  the  canonical  Scriptures  which  coincides  pre- 
cisely with  the  catalogue  of  Carthage  ;*  and  yet  there  is  abun- 
dant proof  that  several  of  the  books  which  are  mentioned  in  his 
list,  Augustine  did  not  believe  to  be  inspired. 

*  Totus  autem  canon  Scripturarum,  in  quo  istam  considerationem  versan- 
dam  dicimus,  his  libris  continetur.  Quinque  Moyseos,  id  est  Genesi,  Exodo, 
Levitico,  Numeris,  Deuteronomio  ;  ac  uno  libro  Jesu  Nave,  uno  Judicum,  uno 
libello  qui  appellatur  Ruth,  qui  magis  ad  Regnorum  principium  videtur  pertinere  ; 
deinde  quatuor  Regnorum  et  duobus  Paralipomenon,  non  consequentibus,  sed  qua- 
si a  latere  adjunctis  simulque  pergentibus.  Haec  est  historia,  qua  sibimet  annexa 
tempora  continet,  atque  ordinem  rerum  :  sunt  aliae  tamquam  ex  diverse  ordine, 
quae  neque  huic  ordine,  neque  inter  se  connectuntur,  sicut  est  Job,  et  Tobias,  et 
Esther,  et  Judith,  et  Machabaeorum  libri  duo,  et  Esdrae  duo,  qui  magis  subsequi 
videntur  ordinatam  illam  historian!  usque  ad  Regnorum  vel  Paralipomenon  ter- 
minatam  deinde  prophetae,  in  quibus  David  unus  liber  Psalmorum,  et  Salmonis 
tres,  Proverbiorum,  Cantica  Canticorum,  et  Ecelesiastes.  Nam  illi  duo  libri, 
unus  qui  Sapientia,  que  alius  qui  Ecclesiasticus  inscribitur,  de  quodam  simili- 
tudine  Salomonis  esse  dicuntur :  nam  Jesus  Sirach  eos  conscripsisse  constan- 
tissime  perhibetur,  quitame  quoniam  in  auctoritatem  recipi  meruerunt,  inter  pro- 
pheticos  numerandi  sunt.  Reliqui  sunt  eorumlibri,  qui  proprie  prophetse  appellan- 
tur,  duodecim  prophetarum  libri  singuli,  qui  connexi  subimet,  quoniam  numquam 
sejuncti  sunt,  pro  uno  habentur :  quorum  prophetarum  nomina  sunt  haec,  Osee, 
Joel,  Amos,  Abdias,  Jonas,  Michoeas,  Nahum,  Habacuc,  Sophonias,  Aggaeus, 
Zacharias,  Malachias :  deinde  quatuor  prophetae  sunt  majorum  voluminum, 
Isaias,  Jeremias,  Daniel,  Ezechiel ;  his  quadraginta  quatuor  libris  ;  Testamenti 
veteris  terminatur  auctoritas. — .S.  Augustini  Episcopi  de  Doctrina  Christiana, 
lib.  ii.  cap.  8. 


APOCRFPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  295 

In  the  twenty  fourth  chapter  of  the  seventeenth  book  of  his 
City  of  God,  he  remarks*  "  that  in  all  the  time  after  their  re- 
turn from  Babylon,  till  the  days  of  our  Saviour,  the  Jews  had  no 
prophets  after  Malachi,  Haggai,  and  Zechariah,  who  prophesied 
at  that  time,  and  Ezra ;  except  another  Zachariah,  father  of 
John,  and  his  wife  Elizabeth,  just  before  the  birth  of  Christ; 
and  after  his  birth,  old  Simeon  and  Anna,  a  widow  of  a  great 
age  ;  and  John  last  of  all."  Again, t  "  From  Samuel  the  prophet 
to  the  Babylonish  Captivity,  and  then  to  their  return  from  it, 
and  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  after  seventy  years,  according 
to  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  is  the  whole  time  of  the  Prophets." 
To  ascertain  his  idea  of  a  prophet  and  of  a  prophetic  composi- 
tion, let  us  turn  to  the  thirty-eighth  chapter  of  the  eighteenth 
book  of  the  same  treatise.^  It  is  there  stated  as  a  probable 
explanation  of  the  fact,  that  some  books  which  were  written  by 
prophets  were  excluded  from  the  canon,  "  that  those  to  whom 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  accustomed  to  reveal  what  ought  to  be  re- 
ceived as  authoritative  in  religion,  wrote  some  thingrs  as  men  of 
historic  investigation,  and  others  as  Prophets,  of  Divine  inspira- 
tion :  the  two  were  kept  distinct  that  the  former  might  be  attri- 
buted to  the  men  themselves,  the  latter  to  God,  who  spoke 
through  the  prophets."     A  prophet,  then,  is  a  person  '*  to  whom 

*  Toto  autem  illo  tempore,  ex  quo  redierunt  de  Babylonia,  post  Malachiani, 
Aggorum  et  Zachariam,  qui  turn  prophetarerunt  et  Esdram,  non  habuemnt 
prophetas  usque  ad  Salvatoris  adventum,  nisi  aliam  Zachariam  patrem  Johan- 
nis,  que  Elisabet  ejus  uxorem,  Christi  nativitate  jam  proxima  ;  et  eo  jam  nato, 
Simeouem  senem,  et  Annam  viduam  jamque  grandffivam  et  ipsam  Johannem 
novissimum. — S.  Augustini  Episcopi  de  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  xvii.  cap.  24. 

t  Hoc  itaque  tempus,  ex  quo  sanctus  SamutJl  prophetare  coepit,  et  dein- 
ceps  donee  populus  Israel  capti\Tis  in  Babyloniam  ducereter,  atque  inde  se- 
cundum sancti  Jeremiae  prophetiam  post  septuaginta  annos  reversis  Israelitis 
Dei  domus  instauraretur,  totum  tempus  est  Prophetarum. — Aug.  de  Civ.  Dei, 
lib.  xvii.  c.  1. 

t  Cujus  rei,  fateor  causa  me  latet ;  nisi  quod  estimo,  etiam  ipsos,  qu'bus  ea 
quae  in  auctoritate  religionis  esse  debent,  sanctus  utique  spiritus  revelabat,  alia 
sicut  homines  historica  diligentia,  alia  sicut  prophetas  inspiratione  divina  scri- 
bere  potuisse  ;  atque  haec  ita  fuisse  distincta,  ut  ilia  tamquam  ipsis,  ista  vero 
tamquam  Deo  per  ipsos  loquenti,  judicarentur  esse  tribuenda  ac  sic  ilia  pertine- 
[  rent  ad  ubertatem  cognitionis,  haec  ad  religionis  auctoritatem. — Aug.  de  Civ. 
Dei,  lib.  xviii.  c.  38. 


296  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

the  Holy  Spirit  is  accustomed  to  reveal  what  ought  to  be  re- 
ceived as  authoritative  in  religion  " — he  is  a  man  vi^ho  speaks 
by  "  Divine  inspiration,"  and  does  not  depend  upon  his  diligence 
and  industry  for  the  truths  which  he  communicates.  He  is  not 
merely  an  individual  who  foretells  the  future, — he  may  write  a 
history,  but  he  must  depend  for  his  facts,  not  upon  historical 
research,  but  the  instructions  of  the  Spirit.  In  other  words, 
Augustine  plainly  treats  prophet  and  inspired  man  as  terras  of 
equivalent  extension.  When,  therefore,  he  says,  that  from  Ezra 
to  Christ,  no  prophet  appeared  among  the  Jews,  he  unquestion- 
ably means  that  the  gift  of  inspiration  was  withdrawn,  and  that, 
consequently,  no  works  written  during  that  period  were  entitled 
to  be  received  as  of  authority  in  religion.  Now  it  is  notorious 
that  a  large  portion,  if  not  all,  of  the  Apocrypha  was  written 
during  this  very  period,  in  which,  as  it  is  piteously  lamented  in 
the  Maccabees,  "  a  prophet  was  not  seen  among  them."  There- 
fore, according  to  Augustine,  a  large  portion  of  the  Apocrypha 
is  not  inspired. 

In  addition  to  this,  there  are  several  passages  in  his  works, 
in  which  he  evidently  treats  the  Hebrew  canon  as  complete.  In 
his  commentary  on  the  fifty-sixth  Psalm,*  he  observes,  "that  all 
the  books  in  which  Christ  is  the  subject  of  prophecy,  were  in  the 
possession  of  the  Jews :  we  bring  our  documents  from  the  Jews 
that  we  may  put  other  enemies  to  confutation  :  the  Jew  car- 
ries the  book  from  which  the  Christian  derives  his  faith.  The 
Jews  are  our  librarians."  Again,  he  says,  in  another  disserta- 
tion :t  "  The  Jews  are  the  escritoirs  of  Christians,  containing  the 
law  and  the  prophets,  which  prove  the  doctrines  of  the  church." 
And  in  another  place  he  expressly  says  that  the  Law,  the  Prophets, 
and   the  Psalms  comprehended   "  all   the  canonical   authorities 

*  Propterea  adhuc  Judeei  sunt,  ut  libros  nostros  portent  ad  confusionem 
suam.  Quando  enim  volumus  ostendere  paganis  prophetatum  Christum,  pro- 
ferimus  paganis  istas  litteras.  Quia  omnes  ipsae  litterae,  quibus  Christus  pro- 
phetatus  est,  Judseos  sunt,  omnes  ipsas  literas  habent  Judaei,  proferimus  codi- 
ces ab  inimicis,  ut  confundamus  alios  inimicos.  Codicem  portat  Judaeus,  unde 
credat  Christianus  librarii  nostri  facti  sunt. — Aug.  in  Psa.  Ivi. 

t  Et  quid  est  aliud  hodie  que  gens  ipsa  Judaeorum,  nisi  quaedam  seriniaria 
Christianorum,  bajulans  legem  et  prophetas  ad  testimonium  aseertiones  Eccle- 
iae. — Aug.  lib.  xii.  contra  Faust,  cap.  13. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  297 

of  the  sacred  books."*  It  is  notorious  however,  that  the  Jews 
rejected  the  Apocrypha— that  these  were  documents  which  they 
refused  to  carry,  and  if  Augustine  received  as  inspired  no  other 
works  but  those  which  were  acknowledged  by  the  Hebrew  na- 
tion, it  is  demonstrably  certain,  that  he  could  not  have  admitted 
any  part  of  the  Apocrypha  into  the  sacred  canon.  We  may  come 
down,  accordingly,  to  particular  books,  and  show  that  some  of 
them  are,  by  him,  expressly  and  unequivocally  excluded.  The 
book  of  Judith,  he  informs  us,  possessed  no  canonical  authority 
among  the  Jews.f  Of  the  Maccabees  he  says,|  "  The  Jews  do 
not  receive  the  Scripture  of  the  Maccabees,  as  they  do  the  Law, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,  to  which  our  Lord  bears  testimony. 
But  it  is  received  by  the  Church  not  unprofitably,  if  it  be  read 
and  heard  soberly,  especially  for  the  sake  of  the  history  of  the 
Maccabees,  who  suffered  so  much  from  the  hand  of  persecutors, 
for  the  sake  of  the  Law  of  God."  Whatever  the  reception  was, 
which  the  church  gave  to  these  books,  Augustine  justifies  it,  not 
on  account  of  their  Divine  authority,  but  chiefly  or  especially  on 
account  of  the  moral  tendency  of  the  history.  It  is  plain  that  he 
could  not  have  regarded  them  as  inspired,  since  their  inspiration 
would  have  been  the  strongest  of  all  possible  reasons  for  receiv- 
ing them.  We  defer  to  the  instructions  of  an  inspired  composi- 
tion, not  because  its  lessons  are  useful,  but  we  know  that  its  les- 
sons must  be  useful  because  it  is  inspired.  Speaking,  in  another 
place,  of  these  same  books,  he  says,§  "  The  account  of  these 

*  Demonstrant  Ecclesiam  suam  in  prescripto  Legis,  in  Prophetarum  pre- 
dictis,  in  Psalmoruni  Cantibus,  hoc  est,  in  omnibus  canonicis  sanctoriuii  libro 
rum  actoritatibus. — Aug.  de  Unit.  Eccl.  c.  15. 

t  Per  idem  tempus  etiam  ilia  Bunt  gesta,  quae  oonscripta  sunt  in  libro  .Tu- 
dith,  quem  sane  in  canone  Scripturaruni  Judaei  non  recepisse  dicuntur. — Aug. 
de  Civ.  Dei.  lib.  xviii.  c.  26. 

t  Et  hanc  Scripturam,  quae  appellatur  Macchabaeorum,  non  habent  Judaei, 
sicut  Legem  et  Prophetas  et  Psalmos,  quibus  Dominus  testimonium  perhibet ; 
sed  recepta  est  ab  ecclesia  non  inutiliter,  si  sobrie  legatur  et  audiatur,  maxime 
propter  illos  Macchabacos,  qui  pro  Dei  lege,  sicut  veri  martyres,  a  persecutori- 
bus  tam  indigna  atque  horrenda  perpessi  sunt,  &c. — Contr.  Gaudent.  Donat. 
l,i.  cap.  31,n.38.  T.  ix. 

§  Quorum  supputatio  temporum  non  in  scripturis  Sanctis,  quae  canonicae  ap- 
pellantur,  sed  in  aliis  invenitur,in  quibus  sunt  et  Macchabaeorum  libri,  quos  non 
JudsRi,  sed  Ecrlesin  pro  canonicis   habet,  propter  quonimdam    Martyrum   pas- 

14 


5298  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

times  is  not  found  in  those  lioly  Scriptures  which  are  called  ca- 
nonical, but  in  other  works,  among  which  also  are  the  books  of 
the  Maccabees  which  the  Jews  do  not,  but  which  the  church 
does,  esteem  to  be  canonical,  on  account  of  the  violent  and  ex- 
traordinary sufferings  of  certain  Martyrs,  who,  previously  to  the 
advent  of  Christ  in  the  flesh,  contended  even  unto  death  for  the 
Law  of  God,  and  endured  grievous  and  horrible  calamities." 
Here  again  these  books  are  canonical  among  Christians,  not  he- 
cause  they  are  inspired,  but  on  account  of  the  examples  of  he- 
roic martyrdom  with  which  they  are  adorned.  The  language  of 
this  passage  is  remarkable.  The  Maccabees  are  first  carefully 
distinguished  from  those  Divine  Scriptures  which  are  called  ca- 
nonical, and  then  it  is  immediately  added  that  the  church  receives 
them  as  canonical.  Here,  then,  is  either  a  contradiction,  (for 
it  is  preposterous  to  limit  the  firfet  clause  so  as  to  make  Augustine 
assert  that  these  books  did  not  belong  to  the  Scriptures  called 
canonical  by  the  Jews — his  words  are  absolute  and  general,)  or 
the  term  canonical  is  used  in  two  distinct  and  separate  senses,  in 
one  of  which  it  might  be  universally  affirmed  that  the  Macca- 
bees were  not  canonical ;  in  the  other,  that  they  were  canonical 
in  the  Christian,  though  not  in  the  Jewish  Church.  I  might 
also  show,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  protract  the  argument,  that 
Augustine  rejected  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom  from  the  list  of 
inspired  compositions.* 

If,  as  we  have  seen,  Augustine  did  not  receive  the  Apocrypha 
as  any  part  of  the  Word  of  God,  what  did  he  mean  by  canonical 
Scriptures  in  the  catalogue  to  which  we  have  already  referred  ? 
I  answer,  without  hesitation,  books  which  might  be  profitably 
read  in  the  churches  for  the  public  instruction  of  the  faithful. 

That  some  of  the  ancient  churches  had  a  canon  of  readino- 
distinct  from  the  canon  of  inspired  writings,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  testimony  of  Athanasius,  Jerome,  and  Ruffinus.  The 
passage  from  Athanasius  is  quoted  in  another  part  of  this  discus- 
sion.    Jerome  says,t  "  As,  therefore,  the  church  reads  the  books 

siones  vehementes  atque  mirabiles,  qui  ante  quam  Christus  venisset  in  carnem 
usque  ad  mortem  pro  Dei  lege  certaverunt,  at  mala  gravissima  atque  horribilia 
pertulerunt. — Aug.  de  Civ.  Dei,  lib.  xviii.  c.  36. 

*  See  Cosin's  Scholastical  Hist.  Canon  under  Augustine. 

t  Sicut  ergo  Judith,  et  Tobiee,  et  Macchabaeorum  libros  legit  quidem  Ec- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  299 

of  Judith,  Tobias,  and  Maccabees,  but  does  not  receive  them 
among  the  canonical  Scriptures,  so  also  it  reads  these  two  volumes 
(Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus)  for  the  edification  of  the  people, 
but  not  for  authority  to  prove  the  doctrines  of  religion."  Ruf- 
fin  says,*  "  It  ought,  however,  to  be  known,  that  there  are  also 
other  books  which  are  not  canonical,  but  have  been  called  by 
our  forefathers,  ecclesiastical  ;  as  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  and 
another  which  is  called  the  Wisdom  of  the  Son  ofSirach,  and 
among  the  Latins  is  called  by  the  general  name  of  Ecclesiasti- 
cus :  by  which  title  is  denoted,  not  the  author  of  the  book,  but 
the  quality  of  the  writing.  In  the  same  rank  is  the  book  of 
Tobit  and  Judith,  and  the  books  of  the  Maccabees.  In  the  New 
Testament  is  the  book  of  the  Shepherd,  or  of  Hermas,  which  is 
called  the  Two  Ways,  or  the  Judgment  of  Peter.  All  which 
they  would  have  to  be  read  in  the  churches,  but  not  to  be  al- 
leged by  way  of  authority,  for  proving  articles  of  faith." 

Now  the  preface  to  Augustine's  catalogue  shows  conclusively 
that  he  was  not  answering  the  question,  what  books  were  inspired, 
but  another  question,  what  books  might  be  read.t     He  first  di- 

clesia,  sed  eos  inter  canonicas  Scripturas  non  recipit,  sic  et  haec  duo  volumina 
(Sapientiam  et  Ecclesiasticum)  legit  ad  aedificationem  plebis,non  ad  auctorita- 
tem  Ecclesiasticorum  dogmatum  confirmandam. — Hieron.  Frafat.  in.  Libros 
Salonwnis. 

*  Secundum  tamen  est,  quod  et  alii  libri  sunt,  qui  non  canonici,  sed  Ec- 
clesiastici  a  majoribus  appellati  sunt,  ut  est  sapientia  Salomonis,  et  alia  sapien- 
tia,  quae  dicitur  filii  Sirach.  Ejusdem  ordinis  est  libeilus  Tobioe,  et  Judith, et 
Maccabaeorum  libri.  In  Novo  vero  Testamento  libeilus,  qui  dicitur  Pastoris 
sine  Hermatis,qui  appellatur  Duoe  Viae,  vel  judicium  Petri  ;  quae  omnia  legi  qui- 
dem  in  ecclesiis  voluerunt,  non  tamen  proferri  ad  auctoritatem  ex  his  fidei  con- 
firmandam.— Ruffin.  in  Symbolo  ad  Calcem  Cypriani.  Oxon.  p.  2G. 

t  Erit  igitur  Divinarum  Scripturarum  solertissimus  indagator,  qui  primo 
totas  legerit,  notasque  habuerit,  et  si  nondum  intellectu,  jam  tamen  lectione, 
dum  laxat  easquae  appellantur  canonicae.  Nam  ceteras  securius  leget  fide  veri- 
tatis  instructis,  ne  praeoccupcnt  imbecillem  animum,  et  periculosis  mendaciis 
atque  i)li;mtasmatis  eludentep,  piaejudicent  ali(]uid  contra  sanam  intelligentiam. 
In  canonicis  autem  Scripturis  Eccla^searum  Catholicarum  quam  plurimum  auc- 
toritatem sequatur,  inter  quaa  sane  illae  sint,  qua?  Apostolicas  sedes  habere  et 
Epistolas  accipere  meruerunt.  Tenebit  igitur  hunc  modum  in  Scripturis  canon- 
icis, ut  eas  quae  ab  omnibus  accipiuntur  Ecclesiis  Catholicis  prapponat  eis  quas 
quaedam  non  accipiunt :  in  eis  vero  quae  non  accipiuntur  ab  omnibus  praeponat 
eas  quas  plure.s  gravioreaque  accipiunt.  eis  quas  pauciores  minorisque  auctorita- 


300  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

vides  the  Divine  Scriptures  into  two  general  classes  :  those  which 
were,  and  those  which  were  not  canonical,  and  gives  the  general 
advice,  that  he  who  would  make  himself  skilful  in  the  Scriptures, 
should  confine  his  reading  to  those  which  were  canonical.  Then 
he  draws  a  distinction  between  the  canonical  hooks  thefnselves^  and 
shows  that  some,  even  of  this  class,  were  entitled  to  much  more 
deference  and  respect  than  others.  He  directs  his  diligent  in- 
quirer, *'  to  prefer  such  as  are  received  by  all  catholic  churches, 
to  those  which  some  do  not  receive  ;"  and  with  regard  to  such  as 
are  not  received  by  all,  he  advises  him  "  to  prefer  those  which 
are  received  by  many  and  eminent  churches,  to  those  which  are 
received  by  few  churches,  and  of  less  authority."  Now,  Trent 
itself  being  witness,  all  inspired  Scripture  is  entitled  to  equal 
veneration  and  respect.  No  matter  if  every  church  under  heaven 
should  agree  to  reject  it,  the  obligation,  supposing  its  inspira- 
ration  to  be  known,  would  still  be  perfect  to  receive  and  obey 
it.  Its  authority  does  not  depend  upon  the  numbers  who  submit 
to  it,  but  upon  the  proofs  that  it  came  from  God.  These  proofs 
can  neither  be  increased  nor  diminished  by  the  multitude  or  pau- 
city of  those  who  are  convinced  by  them.  If  they  should  be  con- 
fined to  a  single  church,  and  that  church  should  proclaim  them 
to  a  faithless  world,  the  world  would  be  as  strongly  bound  to 
listen  and  believe,  as  though  a  thousand  sees  had  joined  in  the 
act.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  evidence  perfectly  conclusive 
of  their  Divine  inspiration  must,  in  regard  to  some  of  the  Epis- 
tles, have  existed,  at  first,  only  in  a  single  congregation ;  and 
even  while  other  churches  had  not  yet  received  them,  their  au- 
thority was  just  as  perfect  and  complete  as  it  afterwards  became, 
when  all  Christendom  confessed  them  to  be  Divine.  It  is  conse- 
quently preposterous  to  measure  the  authority  of  inspired  Scrip- 
ture by  the  number,  dignity,  and  importance  of  the  churches 
that  acknowledge  its  claims.  But  if  the  question  be,  what  books, 
in  the  estimation  of  those  who  are  competent  to  judge,  may  be 
safely  read  for  practical  improvement,  then  the  rule  of  Augustine 


tis  Ecclesiae  tenent.  Si  autem  alias  invenerit  a  pluribus,  alias  a  gravioribus 
haberi,  quamquam  hoc  facile  invenire  non  possit,  aequalis  tamen  auctoritatis 
habendas  puto. — Aug.  de  Doctrina  Christ,  lib.  ii.  c.  8. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  301 

is  just  and   natural.     You  must  inquire   into  the  experience  of 
the  Christian  world,  if  you  wish   to  ascertain  the  works  which 
God    has  eminently  blessed  to  the  comfort,  holiness,  stability, 
and  peace  of  his  chosen  children.     It  seems,  as  we  gather  from 
Augustine's  Preface,  that  there  were  works  in  circulation  under 
the   title  of  Divine  Scriptures,  abounding  in   falsehoods  perilous 
to  the  soul,  which  could  not,  therefore,  be  read  with  safety  or 
with  profit.     In  contradistinction   from   these  dangerous  books, 
those  which  might  be  read  with  security  and  advantage,  were 
pronounced  to  be   canonical,  and  his  whole  purpose  was  to  fur- 
nish a  catalogue  of  safe  religious  works,  in  order  to  guard  against 
the  hazard  and  detriment  to  which  the  minds  of  the  ignorant  and 
unskilful  would  be  otherwise  exposed.     By  canonical,  therefore, 
he  means  nothing  more  than  useful  or  expedient  as   a  rule  of 
life.     The  word  will   evidently  bear  this   meaning.     It  is  a  gen- 
eral term,  and,  in  itself  considered,  expresses  no  more  than  what 
is  fit  to  be  a  rule,  without  any  reference  to  the  authority  which 
prescribes  it,  or  the  end  to  which  it  is  directed.     In  its  applica- 
tion to  the  inspired  Scriptures,  it  conveys  the  idea  of  an  authori- 
tative rule  or  standard  of  faith,  simply  because  they  can  be  a  rule 
of  no  other  kind.     But  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  term 
itself,  which  prevents  it  from  being  used  to  signify  a  rule  for  the 
conduct  of  life,  collected  either  from  the  experience  of  the  good, 
the  observation  of  the  wise,  or  the  reasoning  of  the  learned.     In 
this  sense,  an  uninspired  composition  may  be  eminently  canoni- 
cal— it  may  supply  maxims  of  prudence  for  the  judicious  regula- 
tion of  life,  which,  though  they  are  commended  by  no  divine 
authority,  are  yet  the  dictates  of  truth  and  philosophy,  and  will 
be  eagerly  embraced  by  those  who  are  anxious  to  walk  circum- 
spectly, and  not  as  fools.     We  do  no  violence,  then,  to  the  lan- 
guage of  Augustine,  when  we  assert  that   by  canonical  books, 
which  he  opposes  to   those  that  were  dangerous  and  deceptive, 
he  meant   books  which  were   calculated  to  edify  by  the  useful 
rules  which  they  furnished,  without  any  reference  to  the  sources, 
whether  supernatural  or  human,  from  which  they  were  derived. 

This  interposition  is  strikingly  confirmed  by  the  grounds  on 
which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  Augustine  admitted  the  Maccabees 
to  be  canonical.  It  also  reconciles  the  apparent  contradiction,  when 


302  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

in  the  same  sentence  he  declares  them  to  be  and  not  to  be  ca- 
nonical. They  are  not  canonical  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  were  canonical,  but  they 
were  canonical  in  a  subordinate  sense,  as  stimulating  piety  by 
praise-worthy  examples. 

Having  ascertained  the  opinions  of  Augustine,  we  are  now 
prepared  to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  the  Council  of  Carthage. 
It  seems  from  the  testimony  of  Ruffinus,  that  the  African  Churches 
were  accustomed  to  read  other  books  for  the  public  instruction 
of  the  faithful,  such  for  instance,  as  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas, 
beside  those  which  were  held  to  be  inspired.  As  many  works 
were  published  under  fallacious  and  deceitful  titles,  and  were 
current  under  the  name  of  Divine  Scriptures,  it  was  thought 
proper,  in  order  to  guard  the  Churches  against  every  composi- 
tion of  this  kind,  to  draw  up  a  list  containing  all  the  works  which 
might  be  safely  and  profitably  read.  To  furnish  a  catalogue  of 
this  sort  was,  I  apprehend,  the  sole  design  of  the  forty  seventh  can- 
on. And  for  the  purpose  of  securing  uniformity  in  the  public 
worship  of  God,  it  was  wise  and  judicious  to  consult  the  church- 
es beyond  the  sea.  This  interpretation,  which  the  language  will 
obviously  bear,  saves  the  council  from  the  folly,  wickedness  and 
disgrace  of  pronouncing  the  third  book  of  Ezra  to  be  inspired, 
and  of  contradicting  the  testimony  of  all  the  past  ages  of  the 
Church  on  the  subject  of  the  sacred  canon.  That  this  was  the 
meaning,  is  distinctly  intimated  in  the  very  phraseology  of  the 
Council  itself  ''  It  is  ordained  that  nothing  but  the  canonical 
Scriptures  be  read  in  the  church,  under  the  name  of  Divine  Scrip- 
tures." It  is  not  said,  nothing  shall  be  received  as  inspired  by 
the  faithful,  but  nothing  shall  be  read.  Then  in  the  close  of  the 
canon,  as  if  to  put  the  matter  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  it  is 
added:  "For  the  confirmation  of  this  canon,  our  brother  and 
fellow  priest  Boniface,  or  the  other  bishops  of  those  parts,  will 
take  notice  that  we  have  received  from  our  fathers  these  books  to 
be  read  in  the  churches.  The  sufferings  of  the  martyrs  may  also 
be  read  when  their  anniversaries  are  celebrated."*  This  paragraph 

*  Item  placuit,  ut  praeter  Scripturas  canonicas,  nihil  in  Ecclesia  legatur  sub 
nomine  divinarum  Scrip turarum,  sunt  autem  canonicae  Scripturae,  Genesis,  Ex- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED,  303 

explains  the  decree.  We  see  from  Athanasius,  Jerome,  and  Ruf- 
finus  what  they  received  from  the  fathers  :  and  they  expressly 
incorporate  uninspired  legends,  the  sufferings  of  the  martyrs, 
among  the  books  that  may  be  read,  showing  that  their  object  was 
to  regulate  the  public  reading  of  the  church,  and  not  to  deter- 
mine the  canon  of  inspiration. 

This,  accordingly,  is  the  interpretation  which  distinguished 
Romanists  have  themselves  put  upon  the  language  of  the  Council. 
Cardinal  Cajetan,  at  the  close  of  his  commentary  on  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  observes  :*  "  And  here  we  close  our 
commentaries  of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  the 
others  (Judith  Tobit  and  Maccabees)  are  not  reckoned  by  St.  Je- 
rome among  the  canonical  books,  but  are  placed  among  the  Apoc- 
ryphal, together  with  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus,  as  is  plain  from 
the  Prologus  Galeatus.  Let  not  the  novice  be  disturbed  if,  in  other 

odus,  Leviticus,  Numeri,  Deuteronomium,  Jesus  Nave,  Judicum,  Ruth,  Regno- 
rum  libri  quatuor,  Paralipomenon  libri  duo.  Job,  Psalterium  Davidicum,  Salo- 
monis  libri  quinque,  libri  duodecim  Prophetarum,  Isaias,  Jeremias,  Ezechiel, 
Daniel,  Tobias,  Judith,  Esther,  Esdrae  libri  duo,  Macchabaeorum  libri  duo.  Novi 
autem  Testamenti,  Evangelicorum  libri  quatuor,  Actuum  Apostolorum  liber  unus, 
Pauli  Apostoli  Epistolas  tredecim,  ejusdem  ad  Haebreos  una,  Petri  Apostoli  duae, 
Johannis  Apostoli  ties,  Judae  Apostoli  una,  et  Jacobi  una,  Apocalypsis  Joannis 
liber  unus. 

Hoc  etiam  fratri  et  consacerdoti  nostro  Bonifacio,  vel  aliis  earum  partium 
Episcopis  pro  confirmando  isto  canone,  innotescat,  quia  a  patribus  ista  accipi- 
mus  in  Ecclesia  legenda.  Liceat  etiam  legi  passiones  martyrum.cum  anniver- 
sarii  dies  eorum  celebrantur. — Court.  Carth.  iii.  c.  47. 

*  Et  hoc  in  loco  tenninamus  commentaria  Librorum  Historialium  V.  T. 
Nam  reliqui  (viz.,  Judith,  Tobia,  et  Maccab.  libri,)  a  S.  Hieronymo  extra  ca- 
nonicos  libros  supputantur,  et  inter  Apocrypha  locantur,  cum  libro  Sapientiae, 
Ecclesiastico,  ut  patet  in  prologo  Galeato.  Nee  turberis,  Novitie,  si  alicubi  re- 
pereris  libros  istos  inter  canonicos  supputari,  vel  in  sacris  conciliis,  vel  in  sacris 
Doctoribus.  Nam  ad  Hieronymi  limam  reducenda  sunt  tarn  verba  conciliorum, 
quam  Doctorum  ;  et  juxta  illius  sententiam  ad  Chroni.  et  Heliod.  Episcopos, 
libri  isti  (et  si  qui  alii  sunt  in  canone  Bibliae  similes)  non  sunt  canonici,  hoc 
est,  non  sunt  Regulares  ad  firmandum  ea  quae  sunt  Fidei ;  possunt  tamen  dici 
canonici,  hoc  est,  Regulares  ad  aedificationem  fidelium,  utpote  in  canone  Bibliae 
ad  hoc  recepti  et  aulhorati.  Cum  hoc  enim  distinciione  discernere  poteris  et 
dicta  Augustini  in  2  de  Doctr.  Christiana,  que  scripta  in  Cone.  Flor.  sub  Eug. 
4,  scripta  que  in  provincialibus  Conciliis  Carthag.  et  Laodic.  et  ab  Innocentio, 
ac  Gelasio  Pontificibus. — Cajetan  in  lib.  Esther,  sub  finem. 


304  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

places,  he  should  find  that  these  books  were  counted  among  the 
canonical,  either  by  holy  councils  or  holy  doctors.  For  to  the 
rule  of  Jerome,  the  words  as  well  of  councils  as  of  doctors  must 
be  reduced.  And  according  to  his  opinion,  these  books  and  all 
similar  ones  in  the  canon  of  the  Bible,  are  not  canonical,  that  is, 
are  not  regular  (or  to  be  used  as  a  rule)  for  confirming  articles 
of  faith  :  though  they  may  be  called  canonical,  that  is,  regular 
(or  may  be  used  as  a  rule)  for  the  edification  of  the  faithful,  and 
are  received  and  authorized  in  the  canon  of  the  Bible  only  for 
this  end  :"  and  with  this  distinction,  he  informs  us,  we  are  to 
understand  St.  Austin  and  the  Council  of  Carthage.  So  that, 
upon  the  showing  of  one  of  the  Trent  doctors — a  man  who  was 
reputed  to  be  the  very  prince  of  Theologians — the  Council  of  Car- 
thage makes  nothing  in  your  favor.  It  was  not  treating  of  the 
canon  of  inspiration,  but  of  the  canon  for  public  reading.* 
-4  III.  Passing  over  your  citations  from  Pope  Siricius  and 
Julius  Firmicus  Maternus  as  presenting  nothing  worthy  of  a 
reply,  I  shall  make  a  few  remarks  upon  Ephrem  the  Syrian,[^Ae 
Prophet  of  the  whole  world  and  the  Lyre  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
That  he  has  quoted  the  Apocrypha,  admits  of  no  question — that 
he  believed  them  to  be  inspired,  is  quite  a  different  matter,  and 
one,  in  reference  to  which  you  have  produced  not  a  particle  of 
proof  There  are  two  facts,  however,  which  you  have  thought 
proper  to  pass  without  notice,  that  create  a  very  strong  presump- 
tion, if  they  do  not  amount  to  a  positive  proof,  against  the 
position  which  you  have  undertaken  to  sustain.  1.  Ephrem 
repeatedly  asserts  that  Malachi  was  the  last  of  the  prophets.^ 
Therefore  no  books  written  subsequently  to  his  time,  could  have 
been  inspired ;  and  therefore  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Apocrypha 
must  be  excluded  from  the  canon. 


*  See  Bingham's  Origines  Ecclesiast.  lib.  xiv.  c.  3,  §  16. 

t  Judaeorum  sacrificia  prophetae  declarant  immunda  fuisse.  Quae  ergo 
Esaias  hoc  loco  hominum  canumve  cadaveribus  aequiparat,  Malachias,  Prophe- 
tarum  ultimus,  animalium  retrimenta  vocat,  non  offerenda  Deo,  sed  offerentium 
in  ora  cum  approbatione  rejicienda.  (Malach.  ii.3.) — Comment.  inEs.  Ixvi.  3, 
T.  ii.  Syr.  p.  94.  C.  D.  Malachias,  omnium  Prophetarum  postremus,  populo 
commendat  legem,  et  legis  coronidem  Joannem,  quem  Eliam  cognominat. — 
Comm.  in  Malach.  iv.  4,  ih.  p.  315,  c. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  305 

2.  Ephrem,  though  he  commented  upon  all  of  the  canonical, 
wrote  no  commentary  upon  any  of  the  Apocryphal  books.* 
Why  does  he  omit  Baruch,  in  commenting  upon  Jeremiah ;  and 
why  omit  the  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  the  story  of  Susan- 
nah, and  the  story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  if  he  believed  that 
these  works  were  parts  respectively  of  Jeremiah  and  Daniel, 
and  entitled  to  equal  authority  with  the  rest  of  the  books  1 
Asseman  informs  ust  that  the  corrupt  additions  to  Daniel  were 
not  contained  in  the  vulgar  Syriac  Bible,  though  they  were 
subsequently  added  from  Greek  copies,  and  your  own  citations 
abundantly  prove  that  they  were  known  to  Ephrem.  He  must, 
therefore,  have  passed  them  over  by  design.  His  references 
to  them  show  that  he  held  them  to  be  historically  true,  and 
practically  useful.  Why,  then,  sever  them,  in  his  commentaries, 
from  the  books  to  which  they  were  generally  attached,  and  of 

*  Hebedjesu  Chaldaeus,  e  Nestorianorum  secta  Episcopus  Solensis,  In  cata- 
logo  Scriptorum  Syrorum,  num.  51.  Ephraemi  opera  enumerat,  his  verbis: 
Ephraem  magnus,  qui  Syrorum  Propheta  cognominatus  est,  edidit  commentaria 
in  libros  Genesis,  Exodi,  Sacerdotum,  (Levitici,)  Josui  filii  Nun,Judicum,  Sam- 
uelis,  (primum  et  secundum  Regum),  in  Libruni  Regum  (tertium  et  quartum), 
Davidis,  (Psalmorum),  Tsaiae,  Duodecim,  (minorium  Prophetarum,  Jeremiae, 
Ezechielis,et  Beati  Danielis.  Habet  etiam  Libros,  et  Epistolas  de  Fidei,et  Ec- 
clesia.  Edidit  quoque  Orafiones  Metricas,  Hymnos,  et  Cantica  :  Cantusque 
omnes  Defunctorum :  et  Lucubrationes  ordine  Alphabetico  :  et  Disputationem 
adversus  Judaeos :  nee  non  adversus  Simonem,  et  Bardesanem,  et  contra  Mar- 
cionem,  atque  Aphitas  :  demum  solutionem  impietatis  Juliani.  Ubi  Hebedjesu 
ea  dumtaxat  Ephraemi  opera  recenset,  quae  ipse  legit,  vel  ad  manus  habuit. 
Nam  Ephraemum  alia  plura  edidisse,  quam  quae  hie  numerantur,  certum  est  ex 
auctoribus  supra  relatis,  et  ex  codice  nostro  Syriaco  iii.  in  quo  habentur  commen- 
taria ejusdam  in  numeros,  in  Deuteronomium. — Assem.  Biblio.  Orien.  vol.  i. 
p.  58. 

t  Quae  D.  Hieronymus  ex  Theodotione  transtulit  Danielis  capita,  nimirum 
Cnnticum  triuni  puerorum,  cap.  3,  a  vers.  24,  ad  vers.  91,  Historiam  Susannae, 
Bel  idol,  et  Draconis,  atque  Danielis  in  locum  leonum  missi,cap.  14,  ea  et  P^ph- 
ra)m  Ilebraecum  Textum  sequutus,  in  hisce  commentariis  tacitus  praeteriit.  Haec 
eniin  in  vulgata  Syrorum  versione  hand  extabant  ;  licet  postea  ex  Graecisexem- 
l)laribn.'^  in  sennone  Syriacum  a  recentioribus  Interpretatibus  conversa  fuerint. 
— Ay^snn.  Bibli').  Orien.  vol.  i.  pp.  72. 

And  yet  Gregory  Nyssen,  as  cited  by  As.seman,  toin.  i.  pp.  56,  says  that 
Ephrem  commented  upon  the  whole  Bible  I  Could  these  additions  to  Daniel, 
then,  have  been  a  i)art  of  it  ? 

14*      ' 


306  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

which  they  were  supposed  to  be  a  part?  I  know  of  but  one 
answer  that  can  be  given,  and  that  is,  that  he  followed  the  He' 
hrew  canon. 

IV.  Your  appeal  is  just  as  unfortunate  to  the  great  Basil, 
Bishop  of  CaBsarea.  Several  of  you  citations  are  taken  from 
that  portion  of  the  Treatise  against  Cunomius  which  is  not  uni- 
versally admitted  to  be  genuine.  The  last  two  books  have  been 
called  into  question.  Still,  upon  the  principles  which  have 
been  repeatedly  explained,  the  strongest  quotations  which  you 
have  been  able  to  extract  from  the  writings  of  this  father,  do 
not  establish  the  divine  authority  of  those  books  of  the  Apocry- 
pha which  he  chose  to  accommodate.  We  have,  however, 
positive  evidence  that  he  admitted  as  inspired  only  the  books 
which  were  acknowledged  by  the  Jews.  In  the  Philocalia,  or 
hard  places  of  Scripture,  collected  by  him  and  Gregory  Na- 
zianzen,  out  of  Origen's  works,  he  proposes  the  question,* 
"  Why  were  only  twenty-two  books  divinely  inspired  ?''  He 
then  goes  on  to  tell  us  that,  "  as  twenty-two  letters  (the  number 
of  the  Hebrew  alphabet)  form  the  introduction  to  Wisdom,  so 
twenty-two  books  of  Scripture  are  the  basis  and  introduction  of 
Divine  wisdom  and  the  knowledge  of  things." 

Again,  in  the  second  book  against  Cunomius,  having  quoted 
the  passage  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Proverbs,  *'  The  Lord  pos- 
sessed me  in  the  beginning  of  his  days,"  Basil  observes  t  that, 
*'It  is  but  once  found  in  all  the  Bible,"  as  Eusebius  had  done 
before.  And  yet,  if  Ecclesiasticus  is  a  part  of  the  Bible,  the 
statement  is  false,  for  substantially  the  very  same  thing  is  de- 
clared in  the  ninth  verse  of  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of  Eccle- 
siasticus. In  fact,  Bellarmin  has  represented  Basil  |  as  quoting 
it  in  the  fifth  book  against  Eunomius,  from  Ecclesiasticus,  and 

*  Quare  22  Libri  Divinitius  inspirati  ?  Respondeo,  quoniam  in  numerorum 
loco,  &c.  Neque  enim  ignorandum  est  quod  V.  T.  libri  (ut  Hebraei  tradunt) 
viginti  et  duo,  quibus  aequalis  est  numerus  Elementorum  Hebraeorum,  non  abs 
re  sint  ut  enim  22  Literae  introductio  ad  sapientiam,  etc.,  ita  ad  sapientiam  Dei, 
et  rerum  notitiam  fundamentum  sunt  et  Introductio  Libri  Scripturae  duo  et  vi- 
ginti.— Philoc.  c.  3,  as  quoted  by  Cosin. 

t    Ana^  £i/  nnauis  rats  ypatpats  eiprjrai'    K.vpios  cktuc  jie.       S  Bas.  Adv.  Eunom. 

X  Bellar.  de  Ver.  Dei.  lib.  i.  c.  14. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  307 

because  the  Father  there  attributes  it  to  Solomon,  the  Jesuit 
has  inferred  that  he  ascribed  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach  to  the 
Monarch  of  Israel.  It  is  plain,  however,  that  Basil  had  reference 
to  Proverbs,  and  Proverbs  only. 

V.  Your  next  witness  is  Chrysostom,  who,  you  have  suc- 
ceeded in  proving,  held  the  Apocrypha  to  be  Scripture,  and,  if 
you  please,  Divine  Scripture  ;  but  you  have  nowhere  shown  that 
he  believed  them  to  be  inspired.  On  the  contrary,  he  himself 
affirms  in  his  homilies  on  Genesis,*  that  *'  all  the  inspired  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  were  originally  written  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue."  How  many  of  those  in  dispute  were  written  in  this 
language  ?  Again,  in  another  place,f  he  acknowledges  no  other 
books  but  those  which  Ezra  was  said  to  have  collected,  and 
which  were  subsequently  translated  by  the  seventy-two  Elders, 
acknowledged  by  Christ,  and  spread  by  his  apostles.  But, 
according  to  your  own  account  of  the  matter,  Ezra  collected 
only  the  books  which  the  Jews  received.  Therefore  Chrysos- 
tom admitted  none  but  the  Hebrew  canon.  If  he  sometimes 
quoted  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom,  or  any  other  books  of  the 
Apocrypha,  as  the  word  of  God,  it  is  evidently  in  the  same  loose 
way,  and  on  the  same  principle  on  which  these  works  were 
ascribed  to  Solomon  or  others  of  the  ancient  prophets.  Their 
sentiments  were  approved,  and  their  doctrine  supposed  to  be 
consistent  with  Scripture. 

VI.  In  regard  to  Ambrose,  bishop  of  Milan,  all  that  I  shall 
say  is,  that  the  same  process  of  argument  by  which  you  would 
make  him  canonize  the  books  that  Rome  acknowledges,  will 
also  make  him  canonize  a  book  which  Rome  rejects,  which,  ac- 
cordins:  to  Sixtus  of  Sienna,  no  father  had  ever  received,  and 
which,  according  lo  Bellarmin,  is  disfigured  with  idle  fables — 
the  dreams  of  Rabbins  and  Tahimdists. 

aiiVTtOctucvai^  Kai  rivrn  nai'TCi  an  nf^tv  aiwojto'SoyriiTatei'.  Chrys.  in  GeneS.  Hom.  4. 
t  Ereoio  iraXiv  av^oi  Ojnuarr'*  tvcirvcvaev^  wort  avrai  £Kde<rOai,  tm  E-ffSpa  Xtyo), 
hat  a-iTO  X€i\j,av(jjv  auyrcOt^vitt  Ciroitfrc.  Alcra  6e  tovto  i.yKOfOfinacv  ep^rjycvdrjvai  avras 
VTT)  rtitv  cfJSo^riK  fa'  rjiijirivcvjiit'  evcn'O™  UipeyeviTO  o  Xpioroj,  Sc^^ETat  avrai,  oi  airo- 
aroXoi  cii  navrai  avras  6taaTretpova!y  aquua  tiroirirt  Kai  Oavftara  o  Xptoroj.  Chrys.  ttt 
Hehr.  Horn.  8. 


308  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

Kis  language  is  just  as  strong,  pointed,  and  precise,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras,  as  it  is  in  reference  to  Tobit, 
Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  or  Judith.  In  his  book  de  Bono  Mor- 
tis, having  quoted  the  thirty-second  verse  of  the  seventh  chapter 
of  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras,  Ambrose  adds  in  the  next  chapter  ;* 
"  We  do  not  fear  that  end  due  to  all,  in  which  Esdras  finds  the 
reward  of  his  devotion — God  saying  to  him,  &c.,"  and  again, 
*'  Esdras  revealed  according  to  the  revelation  imparted  to  him," 
and  still  again,  "  Who  was  the  elder,  Esdras  or  Plato?  For 
Paul  followed  the  sayings  of  Esdras  and  not  of  Plato."  Now  if 
Ambrose  could  treat  Esdras  as  a  prophet,  who  received  a  reve- 
lation to  be  communicated  to  others,  and  yet  not  really  believe 
him  to  be  inspired — if  his  language,  in  this  case,  must  be  under- 
stood in  a  subordinate  and  modified  sense,  why  not  understand 
him  in  the  same  way  when  he  applies  a  similar  phraseology  to 
the  other  books  of  the  Apocrypha  ?  Ambrose,  if  strictly  inter- 
preted, proves  too  much  even  for  the  Jesuits.  They  are  obliged 
to  soften  his  expressions,  and  in  doing  so,  they  completely 
destroy  the  argument  by  which  they  would  make  him  canonize 
the  books  which  Trent  has  inserted  in  the  Sacred  Library.  As 
to  his  quoting  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  under  the  name  of 
Solomon,  that  proves  nothing,  since  he  has  distinctly  informed 
us  t  that  Solomon  was  the  author  of  only  three  books,  Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles. 

VII.  It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  your  citations  from 
Paulinus  of  Nola,  as  they  involve  only  the  same  argument  which 
has  been  so  frequently  refuted,  and  the  testimony  of  Augustine, 
your  last  witness,  has  been  abundantly  considered  already. 

*  Non  vereamur  ilium  debitum  omnibus  finem,  in  quo  Esdras  remunera- 
tionem  suae  devotionis  invenit,  dicente  ei  Domino.  Quis  utique  prior,  Esdras, 
an  Plato  ?  nam  Paulus  Egdrae,non  Platonis  sequuius  est  dicta.  Esdrae  revela- 
vit  secundum  collatam  in  se  revelationem,  justos  futuros  cum^risto,  futures  et 
cum  Sanctis. 

t  Unde  et  Salomonis  tres  libri  ex  plurimis  videntur  electi :  Ecclesiastes  de 
naturalibus,  Cantica  Canticorum  de  mysticis,  Proverbia  de  moralibus.  In  Ps. 
xxxvi.  pr.  t.  i.  p.  777.  Quid  etiam  trei^iteri  Sakmonis,  unus  de  Pioverbiis 
alius  Ecclesiastes,  tertius  de  Canticis  Canticorum,  nisi  trinee  liujus  ostendunt 
nobis  Sapientiae  sanctum  Salomonem  fuisse  solertem  ? — In  Lucam,  pr.  t.  i.  p 
1262, A.  \    ■    ■    ■ 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  309 

It  now  remains  to  sum  up  the  result  of  this  whole  investiga- 
tion. You  undertook  to  prove  that  Rome  was  not  guilty  of  arro- 
gance and  blasphemy  in  adding  to  the  word  of  God — in  other 
words,  you  undertook  to  prove  that  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired. 
For  this  purpose  you  brought  forward  four  arguments,  which  I 
shall  collect  in  the  syllogistic  form. 

1.  The  first  was,  Whatsoever  Rome,  being  infallible,  de- 
clares to  be  inspired,  must  be  inspired. 

Rome  declares  that  the  Apocrypha  are  so. 

Therefore,  the  Apocrypha  must  be  inspired. 

In  a  series  of  Essays  I  completely  and  triumphantly  refuted 
the  major,  so  that  this  argument,  which  was  the  key-stone  of  the 
arch,  fell  to  the  ground. 

2.  Your  second  was.  Whatsoever  books  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles quoted,  must  be  inspired. 

Christ  and  his  apostles  quoted  the  Apocrypha. 
Therefore  the  Apocrypha  must  be  inspired. 
Both  premises  of  this  syllogism  were  proved  to  be  false,  so 
that  it  is  not  only  dead,  but  twice  dead,  plucked  up  by  the  roots. 

3.  Your  third  was,  Whatever  books  were  incorporated  in 
the  ancient  versions  of  the  Bible,  must  be  inspired. 

The  Apocrypha  were  so  incorporated. 
Therefore  the  Apocrypha  must  be  inspired. 
The  major  was  shown  to  be  without  foundation,  and  contra- 
dicted by  notorious  facts. 

4.  Your  fourth  and  last  was,  Whatever  the  Fathers  have 
quoted  as  Scripture,  Divine  Scripture,  &:.c.,  must  be  inspired. 

They  have  so  quoted  the  Apocrypha. 

Therefore  the  Apocrypha  must  be  inspired. 

Here  again  the  major  was  shown  to  be  false,  as  these  were 
only  general  expressions  for  religious  literature,  whether  inspired 
or  human.  The  result,  then,  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  in 
three  instances  your  conclusion  is  drawn  from  a  single  premiss, 
and  in  one  case  from  no  premises  at  all.  Upon  this  foundation 
stand  the  claims  of  the  Apocryphal  books  to  a  place  in  the  canon. 


310  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 


LETTER   XIX. 

The  real  Testimony  of  the  Primitive  Church.— The  Canons  of  Melito,  Origen,  Athanasius, 
Hilary,  Cyril,  Gregory  Naz.,  Jerome, Ruffinus,  Council  of  Laodicea. 

Having  now  shown  that  Rome  has  utterly  failed  in  producing 
a  particle  of  proof  in  favor  of  her  adulterated  canon,  I  proceed 
to  vindicate  my  original  assertion,  that,  for  four  centuries,  the 
unbroken  testimony  of  the  Christian  church  is  against  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Apocryphal  books.  During  all  that  period  there  is 
not  only  no  intimation  of  what  you  have  asserted  to  be  true,  that 
Christ  and  his  apostles  delivered  them  to  the  faithful  as  a  part  of 
the  divine  Rule  of  Faith,  but  there  is  a  large  amount  of  clear, 
positive,  and  satisfactory  evidence  that  no  such  event  could  possi- 
bly have  taken  place. 

The  testimony  of  the  primitive  church  presents  itself  to  us 
under  two  aspects :  It  is  either  negative,  consisting  in  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  disputed  books  from  professed  catalogues  of  Scrip- 
ture ;  or  positive,  consisting  in  explicit  declarations  on  the  part 
of  distinguished  Fathers,  that  they  were  not  regarded  as  inspired. 
These  two  classes  of  proof  I  shall  treat  promiscuously,  and  ad- 
duce them  both  in  the  order  of  time. 

1.  Little  more  than  half  a  century  after  the  death  of  the  last 
of  the  apostles,  flourished  Melito,  bishop  of  Sardis,  one  of  the 
seven  churches  to  which  John,  in  the  Apocalypse,  was  directed 
to  write.  Such  was  the  distinguished  reputation  which  this 
good  man  enjoyed,  that  Polycrates,  bishop  of  Ephesus,  says  of 
him  that  he  was  guided  in  all  things  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and 
Tertullian  not  only  praises  "  his  elegant  and  oratorical  genius," 
but  adds  that  "  he  was  esteemed  by  many  as  a  prophet."  The 
recorded  opinions  of  such  a  man,  living  near  enough  to  the 
times  of  the  apostles  to  have  conversed  with  those  who  had  lis- 
tened to  the  divine  instructions  of  John,  though  not  to  be  re- 
ceived as  authority,  are  certainly  evidence  of  a  very  high  charac- 
ter. It  so  happens,  in  the  providence  of  God,  that  we  have  a  cat- 
alogue of  the  sacred  books  drawn  up  by  him  for  his  friend  One- 
simus,  which  he  professes  to  have  made  with  the  utmost  accuracy, 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  311 

after  a  full  investigation  of  the  subject.  I  shall  suffer  him  to 
speak  for  himself.  '*  Melito  sends  greeting  to  his  brother  Onesi- 
mus.  Since  in  thy  zeal  for  the  word,  thou  hast  often  desired  to 
have  selections  from  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  concerning  the 
Saviour  and  the  whole  of  our  faith,  and  hast  also  wished  to  ob- 
tain an  exact  statement  of  the  ancient  books,  how  many  they 
were  in  number,  and  what  was  their  arrangement,  I  took  pains  to 
effect  this,  understanding  thy  zeal  for  the  faith,  and  thy  desire 
of  knowledge  in  respect  to  the  word,  and  that,  in  thy  devotion 
to  God,  thou  esteemest  these  things  above  all  others,  striving 
after  eternal  salvation.  Therefore,  havino-come  to  the  East  and 
arrived  at  the  place  where  these  things  were  preached  and  done, 
and  having  accurately  learned  the  books  of  the  Old  Testatnent,  I 
have  subjoined  a  list  of  them  and  sent  it  to  thee.  The  names 
are  as  follows :  of  Moses,  five  books :  namely.  Genesis,  Exodus, 
Leviticus,  Numbers,  and  Deuteronomy  :  Joshua,  son  of  Nun, 
Judges,  Ruth :  four  books  of  kings,  two  of  Chronicles,  the 
Psalms  of  David,  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  which  is  also  called 
Wisdom,  Ecclesiastes,  Song  of  Songs,  and  Job:  of  Prophets, 
the  books  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  writings  of  the  twelve  pro- 
phets in  one  book,  Daniel,  Ezekiel,  Ezra,  from  which  I  have 
made  selections,  distributinor  them  into  six  books."* 

This  testimony,  you  inform   us,t  "  corroborates   the   fact," 


\oyov  j^pioftevoi  ycvETQai  aoi  ex^oyac,  ck  t€  rov  vojxov  kui  tcov  Trpod>r)Tiov  tteoi  tov  crcjTtjpos 
Kai  TTuarii  rrji  m<TTeii)i  rj^otv.  en  6e  Kat  utiOciv  rrjv  roiv  ira\ai(ov  Pi/SXioiv  tl3ovXriQr}i  axpi- 
f3ciav,  voaa  tov  apiOfjov  Kai  citna  rr/v  ra^tv  eicv,  canovSuaa  to  TOiavTo  npa^ai  eTTiaTaiie- 
voi  (TOP  TO  ffirovSmov  trepi  tt\v  ttkitiv^  Kai  <piXt)iiaOci  vepi  top  Xuyop.  oti  tc  uaXiOTa 
napToip  TToQu,  Ti>t  Ttpos  Ocov  Tavra  TrpuKpiPCiij  nepi  tt);  aioiviov  aioTrjpiui  ayMi/t^oitspos' 
apcXdojv  ovv  CIS  Ttjv  epaTo\r]v,  kui  ecoi  tov  tokov  ycvo^icpoi'  epOa  £Kf]pv\Ori  Kai  cnpayOrj^ 
Kat  axpi0(x)f  jiaQ(jiv  Ta  ttjj  iraXatai  SinOrjKtji  fitfiXta  vnoTa^ug  enejixpa  aof  up  coti  Ta  ovoua- 
ra'  Mwii<T£cJs  itcptc  '  rcpcai^^  K^oSos,  A.£vtTtK0Vy  A.pi6fi0P,  Ac'JTepovoixiov  •  Itjtrovs 
J>uv»j,  }\.piTai,  PovO'  Brto-iXetcjj/  Tcaaapoy  HapaXeiiroficvcjv  6vo.  "^aXficop  Aa/Stf^  yio\o- 
fiO)VOi  Ylapoi^iai^  r\  kcli  lIo(^«rt,  ^KKXif^iaaTt^i,  A.afia  A-cri/arcoPy  lu}(3'  JJpotpnruiv,  Heraiou, 
lepcfiiov'  TWP  Su)6cKa  cp  ftopoi3il3X'.y,  xXunrjX,  ir.^eK(r]\,  Ka(]pai,  c^  wp  kui  cxXoyioi  tiroit)- 
cajinPy  £«s  CKfiifiXia  (JjeAcji/.      Melito's  Letter  to  Oiiesimus,  Euseb.  B.  iv.  c.  26. 

t  "His  testimony  corroborates  the  fact,  otherwise  clearly  proven,  that  at 
his  day  the  practice  of  the  Christian  world  was  at  variance  with  the  opinion 
which  he  advanced." — A.  P.  F.,  Lett.  xiii. 


312  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

that  in  the  age  of  Melito,  "  the  practice  of  the  Christian  world 
was  at  variance  with  the  opinion  which  he  advanced."  In  other 
words,  I  understand  you  to  assert,  that  the  Epistle  itself  furnishes 
satisfactory  proof,  that  at  the  period  in  which  it  was  written,  a 
different  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  generally  received 
from  that  which  is  presented  in  it.  But,  sir,  in  what  part  of  the 
letter  can  this  corroborating  evidence  be  found  ?  Melito  evidently 
writes  with  the  confidence  of  a  man  who  knew  that  'he  was  pos- 
sessed of  the  truth.  He  professes  to  give  an  exact  statement  of 
the  names,  number,  and  arrangement  of  the  sacred  books,  and  no- 
where does  he  drop  the  most  distant  hint  that  opposing  senti- 
ments were  held  upon  the  subject,  or  that  any  other  works  had 
ever  been  commended  by  any  portion  of  Christendom  as  entitled 
to  equal  veneration  with  those  which  he  had  enumerated.  How 
then  does  **  his  testimony  corroborate  the  fact,  that  at  his  day  the 
practice  of  the  Christian  world  was  different  from  the  opinion 
which  he  advanced  ?"  Will  the  reader  believe  it  ?*  Because  he 
investigated  the  subject  and  formed  his  conclusion  from  person- 
al examination,  it  is  confidently  inferred  that  the  whole  matter 
must  previously  have  been  involved  in  uncertainty  or  doubt. 
Sir,  you  have  forgotten  your  chronology.  That  was  an  age  of 
private  judgment :  the  Son  of  Perdition  had  not  then  enslaved  the 
understandings  of  men.  Priestly  authority  was  not  received  as 
a  substitute  for  light,  and  the  mere  dicta  of  ghostly  confessors 
were  not  regarded  as  the  oracles  of  God.  The  easy  art  of  be- 
lieving by  proxy,  which  must  always  result  in  personal  damna- 
tion, was  then  wholly  unknown.  Tremblingly  alive  to  the  im- 
portance of  truth,  and  deeply  impressed  with  the  dangers  of  de- 
lusion, the  faithful  of  that  day  felt  the  responsibility  that  rested 
upon  them  to  "  try  the  spirits,  to  prove  all  things,  and  hold  fast 
that  which  was  good."     Hence  Melito  determined  to  be  guided 

*  "  Melito,  according  to  his  own  statement,  came  to  the  conclusion  set  forth 
in  his  letter,  after  he  had  travelled  into  Palestine,  and  had  there  investigated  the 
question.  From  this  we  are  forced  to  infer,  that  he  had  not  been  taught  in  his 
youth  at  Sardis,  and  that  it  had  not  been  made  known  to  him,  even  in  his  ma- 
turer  3'ears,  while  he  was  a  priest,  and  perhaps  the  Bishop  of  that  church.  It 
was  precisely  by  his  inquiries  in  Judea  that  he  was  led  to  the  opinion  wluch 
he  finally  adopted." — A.  P.  F.,  Lett.  xiii. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    IlEFUTED.  313 

only  by  evidence  ;  and,  acting  in  obedience  to  the  apostolic  in- 
junction, wisely  resolved  to  investigate  the  subject,  and  to  form 
his  opinions  upon  accurate  research.  He  accordingly  visits  the 
country  whence  the  Gospel  had  sprung,  traverses  the  region 
where  Jesus  had  labored,  converses  with  the  churches  in  which 
apostles  had  taught,  and  ascertained  tlie  books  on  which  they 
were  relying  for  the  words  of  life. 

As  you  are  perfectly  confident,  however,  that  the  testimony  of 
Melito,  commended  as  it  is  by  his  diligence  and  care,  must  be 
worthless  because  it  is  unfavorable  to  the  interests  of  Rome,  you 
invent  three  hypotheses,*  by  means  of  one  of  which  you  hope 
to  obviate  its  natural  result.  It  was  either  his  object,  accordino- 
to  you,  to  publish  the  canon  of  the  churches  in  Palestine,  or  to 
give  that  of  the  Jewish  Synagogue,  or  to  express  his  own  private 
opinion  that  Christians  should  receive  no  other  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  but  those  which  were  acknowledged  by  the  Jews.  If 
mere  conjecture  is  to  settle  the  matter,  it  is  just  as  easy  to  make 
a  fourth  supposition  ;  that  his  real  design  was  to  compare  the 
faith  of  Asia  and  Palestine,  and  to  give  the  canon  of  the  Chris- 
tian world,  so  far  as  he  was  able  to  ascertain  what  it  was.  Let  us, 
however,  test  the  value  of  your  three  evasions. 

1.  If  it  were  the  object  of  Melito  to  state  the  books  which 
the  churches  of  Palestine  believed  to  be  inspired,  we  may  re- 
gard it  as  settled  that  they  received  none  but  those  which  are 
contained  in  his  list.  Then,  of  course,  they  rejected  the  Apoc- 
rypha. Now  these  churches  were  planted  by  the  hands  of  the 
Apostles,  they  were  the  first  fruits  of  the  Christian  ministry,  and 
here,  if  any  where,  we  should  expect  to  find  an  accurate  know- 
ledge of  the  books  which  the  Apostles  had  prescribed  as  the  rule 
of  faith.  Strange,  very  strange,  if  within  sixty  years  after  the 
last  of  the  sacred  college  had  fallen  asleep,  so  little  regard  was 
paid  to  their  instructions  in  the  scene  of  their  earliest  labors, 
that  six  entire  works,  together  with   divers  fragments  of  others, 

*  "  If  on  the  other  hand,  Melito,  disregarding  the  practice  of  the  church, 
even  in  Palestine,  and, seduced  by  peculiar  views  on  the  authority  and  sanctions 
of  the  Jewish  canon,  as  opposed  to  the  usage  of  the  church,  intended  in  his  letter 
to  give  us  the  Books  contained  in  the  Jewish  canon,  manifestly  his  testimony 
does  not  touch  the  point  before  ns  at  all." — A.  P.  F.,  Lett.  xiii. 


314  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR   THE 

had  been  ruthlessly  torn  from  the  inspired  volume,  as  delivered 
to  these  churches  by  their  venerable  founders  !  To  say,  as  you 
have  done,  *  that  the  Apostles,  in  tenderness  to  their  early  pre- 
judices, permitted  the  Hebrew  Christians  to  retain  the  canon  of 
the  Jewish  church,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Apocrypha,  is  to  con- 
tradict what  you  have  elsewhere  said,  that  the  Jews  themselves 
entertained  a  profound  respect  for  the  disputed  books,  and  would 
have  admitted  them  into  their  sacred  library,  if  they  had  had  the 
authority  of  a  prophet.  These  Jewish  prejudices,  consequently, 
are  a  desperate  expedient,  invented  solely  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
conciling the  notorious  faith  of  the  churches  in  Judea,  with 
what  Rome  chooses  to  represent  as  Apostolic  teaching.  You 
tell  us  in  one  breath  that  the  Apostles  delivered  the  Apocrypha 
to  the  primitive  Christians  as  inspired,  and  then  in  the  very  next, 
declare  that  they  did  not  deliver  them  to  the  churches  in  Judea, 
because  the  stiff-necked  children  of  Abraham  would  not  receive 
them.  But  when  the  question  was,  Did  the  Jewish  Church  re- 
ject the  Apocrypha,  from  the  sacred  canon,  we  were  then  in- 
formed that  this  was  not  the  case — that  it  was  a  great  admirer  of 
the  contested  books,  and  would  cheerfully  have  received  them, 
if  it  had  been  commissioned  by  a  proper  tribunal.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  a  little  singular  that  the  Jews  should  be  so  warmly  at- 
tatched  to  the  books  as  to  be  willing  to  canonize  them  upon  suf- 
ficient authority,  and  yet  so  violently  prejudiced  against  them, 
that  the  whole  College  of  Apostles  could  not  subdue  their  oppo- 
sition. I  have  no  knack  at  explaining  riddles,  and  must  there- 
fore leave  these  high  mysteries  to  those  who  can  swallow  tran- 
substantiation.  In  the  meantime  I  may  be  permitted  to  remark 
that  the  Apostles  were  not  in  the  habit  of  surrendering  truth  to 
prejudice  ;  and  if  the  churches  of  Palestine  knew  nothing  of 
their  having  endorsed  the  Apocrypha  as  inspired,  the  presump- 
tion is   irresistible,  that  no  such  thing  ever  took  place.     What 

*  "  The  fact  that  a  small  portion  of  the  universal  church,  converts  from  Ju- 
daism, should  cling  to  the  observances  of  those  ancestors  whom  they  revered, 
and  whom  every  hill  and  dale  recalled  to  their  minds,  does  not  condemn  other 
churches  which,  untrammelled  by  any  such  restrictions,  unswayed  by  any  such 
motives,  walked  boldly  under  the  guidance  of  the  Apostles." — A.  P.  P.,  Lett. 
xiii. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  315 

they  preached  to  the  Gentiles,  they  preached  first  to  the  Jews  ; 
and  as  to  all  the  world  they  had  proclaimed  one  Lord  and  one 
baptism,  so  they  had  likewise  proclaimed  only  one  faith. 

2.  Your  second  hypothesis,  that  Melito  intended  to  state  the 
canon  of  the  Jewish  synagogue,  and  not  of  the  Christian  church- 
es, is  contradicted  by  his  own  words.  How  could  the  zeal  ©f 
Onesimus  in  the  faith  be  an  inducement  to  give  him  only'a  part 
of  its  standard;  and  how  would  he  be  assisted  in  acquirincr 
knowledge,  by  being  led  into  serious  error  ?  Onesimus  desired 
an  exact  statement  of  the  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  But  ac- 
cording to  you,  Melito  furnishes  him  only  with  those  books  which 
the  Jews  received,  and  consequently  omitted  an  important  por- 
tion of  the  whole  Old  Testament.  Yet  Melito  himself  says  that 
he  had  fully  complied  with  the  request  of  his  friend.  So  that 
either  your  supposition  must  be  false,  or  the  good  Bishop,  who, 
Polycrates  says,  was  guided  in  all  things  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  was 
guilty  of  a  falsehood. 

3.  Your  third  hypothesis,  that  he  only  intended  to  express  his 
private  opinion  in  opposition  to  the  prevailing  practice  of  the 
church,  as  to  the  books  which  ought  to  be  received,  hardly  de- 
serves a  serious  notice.  That  a  man  should  travel  from  Sardis 
to  Jerusalem,  to  ascertain  the  documents  which  the  Apostolic 
churches  held  to  be  inspired;  then  give  the  result  of  his  inqui- 
ries with  the  strongest  expression  of  confidence,  when  his  con 
elusions  were  notoriously  at  variance  with  the  faith  of  the  chur- 
ches on  which  he  had  relied — in  other  words,  that  he  should  en- 
tertain so  much  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the  Hebrew  and  East- 
ern churches,  as  to  make  a  long  journey  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
sulting them,  and  after  all  pay  no  attention  to  their  opinions  at 
all,  is  a  proposition  too  monstrous  to  be  deliberately  maintained. 
I  do  not  deny  that  Melito  has  given  us  his  private  opinion,  but  I 
do  deny  that  he  has  given  an  opinion  peculiar  to  himself  His 
own  statement  is  certainly  worthy  of  credit — his  object  was  to 
give,  (and  he  professes  to  have  done  it,)  an  exact  account  of  the 
names,  number,  and  arrangement  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. He  fabricated  no  new  canon  for  himself,  but  recorded 
the  books,  and  all  the  books,  which  the  churches  of  the  East 
believed  to  be  inspired.     From  Jerusalem  to  Sardis,  consequent- 


316  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

ly,  in  all  the  churches  planted  by  Apostles,  there  was  but  one 
voice,  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  as  to  the  docu- 
ments which  compose  the  Old  Testament ;  and  that  voice  which 
may  almost  be  regarded  as  a  distant  echo  of  the  preaching  of 
the  twelve,  condemns  the  canon  of  Trent. 

As  to  the  objection  that  Melito  has  omitted  the  Book  of  Es- 
ther, I  reply  in  the  words  of  Eichhorn  :*  "  It  is  true,"  says  he, 
"  that  in  this  catalogue  Nehemiah  and  Esther  are  not  mentioned  ; 
but  whoever  reads  the  passage  and  understands  it,  will  here  dis- 
cover both  of  them.  Melito  here  arranges  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  manifestly  according  to  the  time  in  which  they  were 
written,  or  in  which  the  facts  which  they  record,  occurred. 
Hence  he  places  Ruth  after  the  book  of  Judges,  Daniel  and 
Ezekiel  towards  the  end  of  his  catalogue,  and  Ezra  last  of  all, 
because  he  wrote  after  the  Babylonian  captivity  ;  and  accordingly 
as  he  comprehended  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  Kings  under  the 
general  appellation  Books  of  Kings,  because  they  related  to  the 
history  of  the  Hebrew  kingdom  from  Saul  to  Zedekiah,  or  until 
the  Babylonian  captivity,  in  the  same  manner  he  appears  to  com- 
prise under  the  name  of  Ezra  all  historical  books,  the  subjects  of 
which  occur  in  the  times  subsequent  to  the  Babylonian  captivity. 
As  it  is  very  common  to  include  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  in  one 
book,  why  might  not  even  Ezra,  Nehemiah  and  Esther,  also  have 
been  regarded  as  a  whole?  If  we  add  to  this  conjecture,  that 
Nehemiah  and  Esther,  according  to  Josephus,  must  have  been 
parts  of  the  canon,  and  that  Fathers  of  authority,  such  as  Origen 
and  Jerome,  expressly  ennmerate  both  in  it,  no  impartial  inqui- 
rer can  well  doubt  that  even  Melito  does  not  reject  from  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament  the  two  books  mentioned." 

To  this  it  may  be  added  that,  according  to  any  of  your  three 
hypotheses  which  have  just  been  considered,  Esther  must  have 
been  included.  If  Melito  intended  to  state  the  canon  of  the 
Hebrew  Christians,  and  that,  as  you  have  said,  coincided  with  the 
canon  of  the  Jewish  church,  this  book  was  confessedly  a  part. 
It  was  also  acknowledged  by  the  Jewish  Synagogue,  and  any  pri- 

*  Vide  Eich.  Einleit.  xli. 

t  Vide  Cosin,  Scholast.  Hist.  Can.  pp.  .33. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  317 

vate  opinions  in  opposition  to  the  practice  of  the  Christian 
church,  which  Melito  might  have  been  induced  to  form  from  his 
intercourse  with  the  Jews,  could  not  have  led  him  to  reject  its 
authority.  Your  conjecture  that  he  forgot  to  mention  it,  is, 
when  we  consider  his  pretensions  to  accuracy,  wholly  incredible. 
As  therefore  it  must  have  been  included,  the  account  which 
Eichhorn  has  given  of  the  matter  is  probably  the  true  explanation. 
In  this  opinion  he  is  sustained  by  Cosin,  a  man  as  learned  as 
himself. 

II.  The  next  writer  to  whom  I  shall  appeal,  and  you  have  pro- 
nounced his  eulogy,  is  Origen.  Eusebius  says  of  him,  that,  "  in 
expounding  the  first  Psalm,  he  has  given  a  catalogue  of  the  sa- 
cred Books  in  the  Old  Testament,  writing  as  follows  :*  "  Let  it 
not  be  unknown  that  the  canonical  books,  as  the  Hebrews  trans- 
mit them,  are  twenty-two;  for  such  is  the  number  of  letters 
among  them."  A  little  further  on,  he  adds,  "  These  are  the 
twenty-two  books  of  the  Hebrews  :  the  Book  called  Genesis  with 
us,  but  among  the  Hebrews,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Book, 
Bereshith,  which  means,  In  the  Beginning  :  Exodus,  Valmoth, 
that  is.  These  are  the  Names:  Leviticus,  Vaikra,  And  he  Called  : 
Numbers,  Ammisphekodeum :  Deuteronomy,  Ellahhaddebarim, 
These  are  the  Words  :  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Nave :  Joshua  Ben 
Nun  :  Judges,  Ruth,  with  them   united  in   one  book  called  So- 


*  Tov  ficv  Toiye  irpuyTov  £^i)yov^£vos  "^a^fiCJVj  CKOeatv  ircitoir^Tai  (12jO()fi/ijj)  tov 
TUiV  U0(j}v  ypa<^u)v  rrn  naXaiui  6iaOr]Krii  KaraXoyov,  wJe  rjojj  ypaipiov  Kara  Xe^iv'  ovk 
ayvor)T£ov  (5'  tivai  rai  ev6ia6r)Kovs  PifiXovi,  ojf  lE^paioi  irapa6t6oaaiv,  6vo  kui  cikoci' 
oaos  0  apiO^ioq  roj/  trapa  avroig  aDv^eiwv  cariv'  £cra  ftera  riva,  errKpcptt  XcyMv.  eiai  6c 
at  ciKoai  6vo  (Si0Xoi  Ka8'  E/Spaiovg  atSe'  t)  trapa  r/^wj/  Yevcaii  tniytypa^tftcvr],  napa  6e 
E/?/oato<j  aiTO  T->jf  ap^rif  TT]i  /3i/3Xov  i3pr)ai0,oirtp  eariv  cv  ap)(^Ti'  K^o<5oj,  ovaXeofKod, 
onep  eari  ravra  ra  ovu^ara'  A-cvitikov,  ovitpi,  kui  CKaXzoif'  A.piQyiOt  uiifieaipCKoSetfj 
^evTcpovofiioVj  cXXe  aSSeiiaptfi,  ovtoi  oi  Xoyoi'  l»j3-oiij  vios  NdHfj,  Iwavc  iScy  riovv' 
Kpirai,  Poi)0,  Trap'  avroii  cv  cvi  acjibertfj.  /SaaiXetcji'  TTpoyrrjj  ^evTcpa,  -rap  avTOti  rv  i_m^- 
ovrjX,  0  QtOKXriTOi'  PaaiXcioiv  rpiTT),  TCTuprrj,  ev  evi  ovajnitXe')(^  AajSiS,  orrcp  can  PaaiXcta 
Aalh6.  HapaXcmoiicvwv  irpwrt],  Scvrcpa^  zv  cvi,  ^iPprj  aiafti^,  oirtp  can  Xoyoi  rjficpdyii' 
Eff(!paf  TTjOwrof  KUi  Scvrcpog  ev  vi,  E^pa,  o  can  0otidoi'  OtiiXos  '^PaX/iw;'  ae(f>cp  diXXi[ji. 
SoXo/itoiTof  Unpoi^iai  /ijaXwO,  E/cicXn<T(a(Tr)7S,  kojcXcO  A.a^a  Aff/iarwr,  oip  aaaipi^. 
H(7a((zj,  Icaaia^  Itp/auf  aw  Opt^voii  Kai  tt)  cniaroXr}  cv  cm,  Ipiftia.  AoKr/X,  AavirjX. 
Ic^CKirj^,  Icc^KfjX.    Iw/?.  Effflijp,  EffO^jp.  c^io  6c  TOVTiov  can  ra  Ma/fAn/^adKO,  azcp  crriyfy- 

patrrat  JlapPn^  aap$ave  cX.     Origen.  Can.  fr.  Euseb.  Eccl.  Tfist.  vi.  25. 


318  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

phetim  :  Kings,  first  and  second,  with  them,  in  one  called  Sam- 
uel, the  Called  of  God  :  the  third  and  fourth  of  Kings,  in  one 
book,  Vahammelech  Dabid,  that  is,  the  Kingdom  of  David :  the 
first  and  second  of  Chronicles,  in  one  book  called,  Dibre  Hia- 
mim,  that  is,  the  Records  of  Days  :  the  first  and  second  of  Esdras, 
in  one  book,  called  Ezra,  that  is  The  Assistant:  the  Book  of 
Psalms,  Sopher  Tehillim  :  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  Misloth  : 
Ecclesiastes,  Koheleth  :  the  Song  of  Songs,  Sir  Hasirim  :  Esaias, 
Jesair :  Jeremiah  with  the  Lamentations  and  his  Epistle,  in  one 
volume,  Jeremiah  :  Daniel,  Daniel :  Ezekiel,  lesekell  :  Job,  Job  : 
Esther,  Esther :  beside  these,  there  are  also  the  Maccabees,  which 
are  inscribed  Sarbeth  Sarbaneel."  In  this  catalogue  the  book 
of  the  twelve  minor  Prophets  is  omitted  through  a  mistake  of 
the  transcriber.  It  is  supplied  both  by  Nicephorus  and  Ruffinus. 
By  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah  we  are  not  to  understand  the  apocry- 
phal letter,  for  the  Jews  never  received  that  as  canonical,  but  the 
one  which  occurs  in  the  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  the  book  of  his 
Prophecy. 

Such  then  is  Origen's  catalogue,  in  which,  although  he  has 
followed  the  Jews,  for  they  are  the  only  safe  guides  on  this  sub- 
ject, he  has  given,  according  to  Eusebius,  "  the  hooks  in  the  Sa- 
cred Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament.'^  It  is  expressly  stated 
that  the  Maccabees  are  out  of  the  Canon ;  and  of  the  other  works 
in  the  Apocrypha,  not  a  syllable  is  mentioned. 

The  Epistle  to  Julius  Africanus  upon  which  you  have  relied 
to  make  Origen  contradict  himself,  does  not  assert  ihe  Divine  in- 
spiration of  the  story  of  Susannah,  but  vindicates  it  simply  as  a 
historical  narrative  from  the  charge  of  being  a  fabulous  impos- 
ture. Africanus  had  asserted  the  book  to  be  a  fiction,  grossly 
spurious,  and  utterly  unworthy  of  credit.  It  was  from  this  accu- 
sation that  Origen  defended  it,  and  showed  conclusively  that  some 
of  the  reasoning  which  his  friend  adopted,  if  carried  out  into  its 
legitimate  results,  would  sadly  mutilate  even  the  records  which 
the  Jews  acknowledged.  The  church  had  permitted  this  story 
to  he  read,  and  Origen  maintains  its  substantial  authenticity,  in 
order  that  the  church  might  not  be  subject  to  the  odious  imputa- 

*  Vide  Opera  Origen,  vol,  i.  pp.  10,  seq. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  319 

lion  of  having  given  to  her  children  fables  for  truth.  Such  books 
were  recommended  to  the  faithful,  as  valuable  helps  to  their  per- 
sonal improvement.  This  was  evidently  done  upon  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  facts  which  they  contained  were  worthy  of  credit ; 
and  as  this  was,  perhaps,  the  general  belief,  in  which  Africanus 
could  not  concur,  Origen  merely  intended  to  prove  that  it  was 
not  at  least  without  some  foundation. 

It  is  true  that  this  Father  has  freely  quoted  the  Apocryphal 
books  under  the  same  titles  which  are  usually  bestowed  on  the 
canonical  Scriptures.  So  also  has  he  quoted  in  the  same  way 
the  spurious  prophecy  of  Enoch,  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  the 
Acts  of  Paul,  and  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews.  He 
has  even  gone  so  far,  in  reference  to  the  Shepherd,  as  to  say  that 
this  Scripture  was,  as  he  supposed,  divinely  inspired*  I  cannot 
believe,  however,  that  Origen  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that 
this  mystical  medley  should  be  entitled  to  equal  veneration  with 
the  Prophets,  Apostles,  and  Evangelists.  He  simply  meant  to 
commend-  the  heavenly  and  holy  impulses  under  which,  as  he 
conceived,  the  work  had  been  written.  From  incidental  ex- 
pressions of  this  sort,  which  are  often  nothing  but  terms  of  re- 
spect, we  are  not  to  gather  the  real  position  which,  in  the 
opinions  of  those  who  use  them,  a  book  is  to  occupy  in  relation 
to  the  canon  of  supernatural  inspiration.  There  is  nothing,  con- 
sequently, to  diminish  the  value  or  obviate  the  force  of  the  plain 
and  pointed  testimony  which  Origen  has  given  to  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament,  in  a  formal  catalogue  in  which  they  are  pro- 
fessedly numbered  and  arranged. 

HI.  I  shall  now  give  the  canon  of  Athanasius,  which  may  be 
found  in  his  Festal  Epistle. t     "  For  I  fear,"  says  he,  "  lest  some 


*  Puto  tamen,quod  Hernias  ista  sit  scriptor  libelli  illius,  qui  Pastor  appella- 
tur:  quje  scriptura  valdc  mihi  utilis  videlur,  et  ut  puto,  divinitus  inspirata. — 
Explan.  Horn.   xvi.  14. 

t  ^irciirjncp  rdrij  circ)^tipr)aav  avara^aaOai  cavrotf  ra  ^cyoficva  AiroKpvipa  xai  Enifii- 
^ai  ravra  rrf  deoTtvevaTiy  ypaiprj  ncoi  r/f  ci:\r}q3<popr\')ficv ,  KaOtjJi  napcioaav  rati  irarpaatv 
01  air  ^D(_1i  avTOTTTai  teat  vrrr)pcrai  ytvoficvoi  rov  \oyov'  e6o^c  KUfdOi  nporpairevri  irapa 
yvr)cn(i}ira6e\(piov  koi  fiaOovrt  avcjdev,  £^r/f  CKQccOai  ra  \^  a  v  nv  i  k  o  ^  eva  Kai  napaSoOcvra 
iriGTCvOcvra  tc  Oeia  eivai  fit0\ia'  iva  CKOffroi,  et  fuv  rjTTarriOr],  Karayv('>  to)v  ir\avT](TavTU)v' 
0  Se  Kodapof  Siajieivai  \aiprj  Tr(t\n>  VTrnfiifti'rtaKOjiei'nq.    V.ti  toivvv   rrji  ^icv   iraKatai  iiaOt)- 


320  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

few  of  the  weaker  sort  should  be  seduced  from  their  simplicity 
and  purity,  by  the  cunning  of  some  men,  and  at  last  be  led  to 
make  use  of  other  books  called  Apocryphal,  being  deceived  by  the 
similarity  of  their  names,  which  are  like  those  of  the  true  books. 
I  therefore  entreat  you  to  forbear,  if  I  write  to  remind  you  of 
what  you  already  know,  because  it  is  necessary  and  profitable  to 
the  church.  Now,  while  I  am  about  to  remind  you  of  these 
things,  to  excuse  my  undertaking,  I  will  make  use  of  the  ex- 
ample of  Luke  the  Evangelist,  saying  also  myself — '  Forasmuch 
as  some  have  taken  in  hand  to  set  forth  writings  called  Apocry- 
phal, and  to  write  them  with  the  God-inspired  Scripture  in  which 
we  have  full  confidence,  as  they,  who  from  the  first  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word,  delivered  them  to  the 
Fathers,  it  has  seemed  good  to  me,  after  consulting  with  the 
true  brethren,  and  inquiring  from  the  beginning,  to  set  forth 
those  books  which  are  canonical,  which  have  been  handed  down 
to  us,  and  are  believed  to  be  Divine,  so  that  every  one  who  has 
been  deceived  may  condemn  his  deceivers,  and  that  he  who  re- 
mains pure  may  rejoice  when  again  put  in  remembrance  of 
these.  All  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  two  and  twenty 
in  number ;  for,  as  I  have  heard,  that  is  the  order  and  number 
of  the  Hebrew  letters.  To  name  them,  they  are  as  follows  :  the 
first  Genesis,  the  next  Exodus,  then  Leviticus,  after  that  the 
Numbers,  and  then  Deuteronomy ;  after  that  Ruth  ;  and  again, 
the  next  in  order,  are  the  four  books  of  the  Kingdoms,  of  these  the 
first  and  second  are  reckoned  one  book,  and,  in  like  manner, 
the  third   and   fourth  are  one  book ;    after  them    the  first    and 


ra 


Kris  ^ipXia  TOi  apiOjir')  ra  iravra  ^iKoai6vo.  Toaavra  yap,  wj  TjfODcra,  Kai 
CTOi'veia  ra  trap'  l^Ppaiois  eivai  TrapaieSarai.  rr]  6e  ra^ai  kui  tco  ovo^ari  eariv  CKaarov 
ourwj'  T{.0(jiTov  Y'tvs.cns,  eira  E|oJoj,  eira  A.eviTiKov,  Kai  ficra  tovto  ApiOfjioi,  Kai  \ot- 
■nov  T)  AevTCOovofiioV  e^rjg  Se  tovtois  eariv  o  Iijtod  tov  Nod/;,  kui  Kptrai,  Kat  fiera 
TOVTU  r)  Povd.  Kai  ira^ii/  c^rjs  (iaaCXeioiv  rccaaoa  (3i$\ia'  Kai  tovtojv  to  jxef  irpwrov  Kai 
Sevteoov  CIS  tv  PiPXiov  apiQjxei'  to  6e  toitov  kui  TtTapTov  ojxokjJS  £'f  f-  Mera  6e 
TUVTU  YlaoaXenroiiepa  a'  Kai  /?'  ojioicjs  £'f  cv  (ii0\iov  tva^iv  apid^iov^eva  Eira  Eo-Joaj  a 
Kai  /?'  ouoioiS  £is  £v.  jVIcra  Se  Tdvra  l3i(3\os  ^aApcjv,  Kai  e^ris  TLapoifiiai.  Eiira 
EK/cA»7(TtaoT»7f  Kai  A.a^ia  A-Cfiarov.  Tlpos  tovtois  £<^ri  Kai  Iw/?,  Kai  Xoittov  Y\po<pr)Tai  oi 
fitv  ScoScKa  £is  £v  (3iP\iov  apiOfJiovnevoi.  Etra  Haaias,  lepeixias  Kai  aw  avTCJ  Bapov^^ 
Oprivoi,  Kai  EtjotoX>7,  Kai  jxet^  avTov  E^£»ct/jX  Kai  Aavir^'X.  A^pi  tovtov  ra  rns  naXaiag 
StadrjKris  lararai.     Athanas.  0pp.  tom.  ii.  p.  38. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  321 

second  of  the  Remains,  or  Chronicles,  are  in  like  manner  ac- 
counted one  book  ;  then  the  first  and  second  of  Esdras,  also  reck- 
oned one  book  ;  after  them  the  book  of  the  Psalms ;  then  the 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  the  Song  of  Songs;  beside  these 
there  is  Job,  and  at  length  the  Prophets ;  the  twelve  are  reck- 
oned one  book;  then  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  and  with  liim, 
Baruch,  the  Lamentations,  the  Epistle ;  and  after  them  Ezekiel 
and  Daniel.  Thus  far  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.'"  Hav- 
ing given  the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  he  proceeds  :  **  For 
the  sake  of  greater  accuracy,  I  will  add — and  the  addition  is  ne- 
cessary— that  there  are  also  other  books,  beside  these,  not  in- 
deed admitted  into  the  canon,  but  ordained  by  the  Fathers  to  be 
read  by  such  as  have  recently  come  over  to  us,  and  who  wish  to 
receive  instruction  in  the  doctrine  of  piety — the  Wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon, the  Wisdom  of  Sirach,  and  Esther,  and  Judith,  and  Tobit, 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  as  it  is  called,  and  the  Shepherd." 

To  the  same  purpose  is  the  account  which  is  given  in  the 
Synopsis  of  Scripture,  which  is  usually  quoted  under  the  name 
of  Athanasius.'*  "  All  the  Scripture  of  us  Christians  is  divinely 
inspired.  It  contains  not  indefinite,  but  rather  determined  and 
canonized  books.  These  belong  to  the  Old  Testament."  Then 
follows  the  same  enumeration  which  has  just  been  extracted 
from  the  Paschal  Epistle.  It  is  afterwards  added  :  "  But  beside 
these,  there  are  other  books  of  the  same  Old  Testament,  not 
cauo?iical,  but  only  read  by  (or  to)  the  Catechumens.  Such  are 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach, 
Esther,  Judith,  and  Tobit.      These  are  not  canonical." 

The  canonical  book  of  Esther,  though  not  particularly  num- 
bered in  these  catalogues,  is  included  under  the  general  name 
of  Ezra.     The  additions  to  it,  however,  are  expressly  mentioned 

*  ITiiffit  yp  ifij  tijuuv  ^nirTTiav(-)v  Oc  >Tt>ci'(TTOi  fffTjr,  ovk  aopicra  tlf,  aWa  fta\^ov 
oipKTiteva  Kai  KCKavovKT^uva  c^st  ra  /hpXta,  Kat  £oti  rm  ftev  TtaXaiai  SiaOrfKiji  ravra. 
Kktos  6c  r-jVTcjv  ei7t  -rraXiv  crepa  fti^SXia  Ttjs  avriji  naXaias  StaOrj^cris.  ov  Kavovi^ofieva 
ftev.  avayivoxTKOfitva  6e  fiovov  roif  xarrj^oi'iisvoii  ravrai '  St)(^ja  SoAo/iwi'TOf,  ^otpia  I/?<row 
viov  ^ipa-^,  KcOrio'  loujifl,  Ta>.?ir.  'CoTavra  Ktii  ra  fit}  Kavovi^o^ieva.  Ttra  fievroi 
7Uiv  naXaiMv  ctnri'ca<rt  Kdvovt^ccrdm  Tran  V.jipmoiq  Kai  Tr)v  -Kfffl/jp'  Kat  rqv  ficv  Pov0,  ^era 
roM/  Kf/jrw*/  evoviicir}'-',  cii  ev  liiliXiov  apiOiiticOm  m^'  os  \\aOt}p  eii  ercpov  ev.  koi  ouroi 
naXiv  eii  eiKoai  Svo  (TVfjir'SrjpdVcOat  tov  apif)nov  ro)i'  Karuju^ofuvui'  Ttapa  aoroij  0t/S\iojv 
— Athan.  0pp.  ii.  p.  126,  seq. 

15 


322  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTiS    FOR    THE 

and  repudiated.  For  the  Esther  which  is  proscribed  by  name, 
is  not  the  book  which  the  Jews  received,  but  the  one  which 
opens  with  the  dream  of  Mordecai.  In  this  Synopsis,  Athana- 
sius  not  only  gives  a  list  of  the  books,  but  inserts  the  sentence 
with  which  each  of  them  begins,  in  order  that  they  might  be 
easily  identified,  and  he  expressly  tells  us  that  the  Esther  which 
he  means,  commences  in  the  manner  which  has  just  been  speci- 
fied. We  are,  therefore,  at  no  loss  to  determine  what  he  in- 
tended to  condemn  and  repudiate  under  the  title  of  Esther.  The 
name  of  Baruch  occurs  in  these  catalogues,  as  it  does  also  in 
those  of  Cyril  and  the  Council  of  Laodicea,  but  it  is  only  a  fuller 
expression  for  the  hook  of  Jeremiah.  "  For  Baruch's  name," 
says  Bishop  Cosin,*  "  is  famous  in  Jeremy,  whose  disciple  and 
scribe  he  was,  suffering  the  same  persecution  and  banishment 
that  Jeremy  did,  and  publishing  the  same  words  and  prophecies 
that  Jeremy  had  required  him  to  write,  so  that  in  several  rela- 
tions a  great  part  of  the  book  may  be  attributed  to  them  both. 
And  very  probable  it  is,  that  for  this  reason  the  Fathers  that  fol- 
lowed Origen,  did  not  only,  after  his  example,  join  the  Lamenta- 
tions and  the  Epistle  to  Jeremy,  but  the  name  of  Baruch  be- 
sides ;  whereby  they  intended  nothing  else  (as  by  keeping  them- 
selves precisely  to  the  number  of  twenty-two  books  only  is  clear) 
than  what  was  inserted  concerning  Baruch  in  the  book  of  Jere- 
my itself  "t 

IV.  Hilary,  bishop  of  Poitiers  in  France,  thus  enumerates  the 

'*  Vide  Cosin.  Scholast.  Hist.  pp.  59. 

t  Et  ea  causa  est,  ut  in  viginti  duos  libros  lex  Testaraenti  veteiis  deputc- 
tur,  vit  cum  literatum  numero  convenirent.  Qui  ita  secundum  traditiones  ve- 
terum  deputantur,  ut  Mosis  sint  libri  quinque  ;  Jesu  Naue  sextus  ;  .Tudicum  et 
Ruth  Septimus  ;  primus  et  secundus  Regnorum  in  octavum,  tertius  et  quartusin 
nonum  ;  Paraiipomenon  duo  in  decimum  sint,  sermones  dieium.  Esdiae  in 
undecimum  ;  Liber  Psalmorumin  duodecimum  ;  Salomonis  Proverbia  ;  Ecclesi- 
astes;  Canticum  Canticorum  in  tertium  decimum,  et  quartum  decimum,  et 
quintum  decimum  ;  duodecim  auteni  Prophetae  in  sextum  decimum  ;  Esaias 
deinde  et  Jeremias  cum  Lamentatione  et  Epistola  ;  sed  et  Daniel,  et  Ezechiel, 
et  Job,  et  Hester,  viginti  et  duum  librorura  numerum  consumment.  Quibus- 
dam  autem  visum  est,  additis  Tobia  et  Judith  viginti  qaatuor  libros  secundum 
numerum  Graecarum  literarum  connumerare. — Tlilari.  Prologo  in  Psalmos,  n. 
XV.  p.  m.  9. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  323 

books  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  he  assures  us,  according  to 
the  tradition  of  the  ancients,  amounted  to  tvventj-two.  "  Five  of 
Moses;  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun,  the  sixth;  Judges  and  Ruth,  the 
seventh;  first  and  second  Kings,  the  eighth ;  third  and  fourth 
Kings,  the  ninth  ;  two  books  of  Chronicles,  the  tenth  ;  Ezra,  the 
eleventh  ;  Psalms,  the  twelfth  ;  Ecclesiastes  and  Canticles,  the 
thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth;  the  Twelve  Prophets,  the 
sixteenth ;  then  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah  together  with  his  Lamen- 
tations and  his  Epistle  :  Daniel,  and  Ezekiel,  and  Job,  and  Esther 
make  up  the  full  number  of  twenty-two  books." 

V.  Contemporary  with  Athanasius  and  Hilary  was  Cyril, 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  a  prominent  member  of  the  second  general 
council  of  Constantinople.  His  opinions  of  the  canon  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  passage:*'  **  Learn  diligently  from 
the  Church  what  are  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  what 
of  the  New,  but  read  me  none  of  the  Apocryphal.  For  if  you  do 
not  know  the  books  acknowledged  by  all,  why  do  you  vainly 
trouble  yourself  about  the  disputed  books?  Read  then  the  Di- 
vine Scriptures,  the  twenty-two  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  have  been  translated  by  the  seventy-two  interpreters.  Of  the 
Law,  the  first  are  the  five  books  of  Moses  :  then  Jesus  the  son  of 
Nave ;  and  the  bool^of  Judges  with  Ruth  which  is  numbered  the 
seventh  :  then  follow  other  historical  books,  the  first  and  second 


*  fS>i\o[ta6o)i  eiriyvoQi  napa  rrji  tvffXrjrrjaj,  TToiai  fiev  ciaiv  ai  Tr]g  rraXaias  6iaBr)Kr]i 
l3i,3\otj  TToiai  6c  rrjs  Kaivrii  kui  ^loi  firiSev  tcov  airoKpv<poiv  avayivwa/cc.  O  yap  ra  irapa 
Tra(nv  o^oXoyovfieva  fir)  eiSo)?^  ti  nepi  ra  a^icpi/JaWofieva  TaXannopeii  ^tOTriv  •  Arayj- 
yvioaxe  raj  Ociai  yP'^'l"^^)  '""'J  ctKoci  ovo  3ij3\ovs  rrii  rraXaiai  StaOrjKTfs^  ras  imo  rwv 
c(i6oiiT}<nvTa  6vo  cpjirjvevrMv  epjirivevOcKTas  .  ■  •  tov  vofiov  fuv  yap  eiatv  ai  Majtrecof  Trpco- 
rai  nzvTC  (iift\oi  .  .  .  c^m  6e,  lijtrovs  uioj  Navn,  xai  rwv  Kpirwi'  ^ttTa  rm  Povd  PifiXi- 
ov  tP6oyiOv  aoidftovjjcvctf,  noi/  Se  Xotiriov  KTTopiKwv  Pi/3\i(0i'.  irpiorri  Kai  Sevrepa  tcov 
BafftXciwj'  /iia  Trap^  E/?pa(()«s  £<7ti  Pi3\oi  •  fiia  6c  kui  n  Tpirrj  kui  rj  Tcraprrj  •  o^ioicjs  6c 
irao^  uvroti  Kai  tojv  \lapa\cnrofiCi'(x)v  r]  np^rr]  kui  rj  6evTcpa  ftta  rvy^nvci  ftiPXoi^  xai 
TOV  E(7(5pa  ri  irp'jirn  xai  ri  6evTcpa  fiia  XeXoytorai.  C(.o6tKaTri  /SiPXog  rj  Ko-flz/p.  Kaj  ra  jicv 
laTOpiKU  Tavra.  Tn  6c  aroi^rjpa  rvyy^avci  ttcvth}  '  Iw/?,  Kai  j3i8Xos  ^Va\fKOv,  koi  Hapot- 
utat,  KUi  KfcX/jcriaorrys ,  xat  A-n^ta  A.a^iaT(jiv^CTtraKai6cKaT0v  (iil3\iov.  Kttj  6c  rovroti  ra 
irpo'Jin^^xa  TTEVTC  '  TMi'  6'o6c>ca  npotprirojv  [tia  /?«jt?Xof,  Kai  llsaiov  fiin,  kui  Jepcftiov  ficra 
Bap'JUY    xai  Qpt\vi>iv  xai   cniffroXrii  '   cirti    It^evcjX  •    xni  17    rov  AavttjX   cixoarn   6cvripa 

0ifi>.ni  rns  TaX.  6ia0.     Cyril.  Hierosul.   Cntrchcs.    iv.  .33-3n,   pp.  G7-69,  ed. 
Tullei. 


324  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

of  the  Kingdoms  (one  book  according  to  the  Hebrews) :  the  third 
and  fourth  are  also  one  book  :  the  first  and  second  of  the  Chroni- 
cles are,  in  like  manner,  reckoned  as  one  book  by  them  :  the  first 
and  second  of  Ezra  are  counted  as  one  book.  The  twelfth  is  Es- 
ther. These  are  the  historical  books.  The  books  written  in  verse 
are  five.  Job  and  the  book  of  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes  and 
the  Song  of  Songs  :  making  the  seventeenth  book.  After  these 
are  the  five  prophetical  books,  one  of  the  twelve  Prophets,  one  of 
Isaiah,  one  of  Jeremiah,  with  Baruch,  Lamentations  and  an 
Epistle:  then  Ezekiel,  and  the  book  of  Daniel  the  twenty-second 
book  of  the  Old  Testament." 

V  VI.  In  the  writings  of  Epiphanius  we  have  no  less  than  three 
catalogues  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  which,  as  they  are 
all  essentially  the  same,  I  shall  trouble  the  reader  with  only  one.* 
"  Twenty-seven  books  acknowledged  and  received  into  the  Old 
Testament,  which,  according  to  the  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alpha- 
bet are  counted  as  twenty-two,  have  been  interpreted.    For  there 

*  Et/coffi  Errra  (ii(i\oi  ai  f>/]Tai  /cat  evSiaSsToi.,  eiKoai  Se  kui  6vo  Kara  rrjv  rov  AXrfiti- 
0r]TOV  nap'  ^(Spaioii  arot^eicjcjiv  upidjiovficvai  ripnr]v£vdrj(7av.  Eivoo-t  yap  Kai  6vo  e^ovai 
OTOi  vetcof  vorifxaTa.  irevrt  Se  etaiv  e^  avrcxiv  6nT\ovneva.  to  yap  K.a9  eari  SittXovv,  koi 
TO  Mev,  Kai  TO  NoD)',  Kai  TO  $j,  Kai  TO  7^a^,t.  Aio  Kai  ai  Pi0\ui  Kara  tovtov  tov  Tpo- 
TTov  EiKoai  Svo  ^uv  apiQ^iovvTai.  CiKoaitnTa  6s  cvptcTKOVTai.  6ia  to  ttevte  £^  avTcov  Snr^ovOai. 
TiVvanTCrai  yap  rj  Povd  TOig  KjOtratf.  Kai  apid^itiTai  nap'  K/3paiois  jua  Pi/EXoi.  Tivvair- 
T£Tai  T)  irpwTri  twv  TS.apa\enroyievoiv  tt)  Sevrspa,  Kai  Xeye-ai  piia  jSif^Xog.  HvvanreTai  r) 
npoiTT)  TCJV  Bao-jXEtwi/  Tt]  SeVTcpa,  Kai  Asyfrai  [iia  PiPXos-  HvvarrTETai  >/  TpiTrj  ttj  Terap- 
TT},  Kai  "^Eyerai  jxia  (Si(3\oq.  Ovrwj  yovv  svyKEivTai  ai  (5il3\oi  ev  IlEVTaTEV^ots  TErapai. 
Kai  [xEvovaiv   uXAa   Svo  vaTspovaai'    wf  ttvai  Tai  Ei'SiadsTovi  (iiff'Kovi   ovTcoi.    TIevte  jiEV 

VOUlKaS,   VevEITIV,   JL^oSoP,  A.EVITIK0V,    ApidflOVS,   AEVTEpOVOHlOV.     aVTT]    Y)  Tl.EVTaTEX)-^OS  Kai 

n  No/i(j0£(Ttrt.  Hevte  yap  crriy^^np^ti-  1  tjv  Iw/?  0iP\os.  Eira  to  '^yaXTripiov^  Tlapoifiiai 
SoXopwi/TOj,  EKK\r](Tia(7Tr]i,  A-d^ia  Ktr^iaToiv.  Ktra  aWt]  Tl.EVTnTEV^oi  ra  Ka\oVjiEva 
Ypa(f)Eia,-apa  Tiai  6e  A.yioypa^a  '\Eyoj.i£va^  aTivaEcrTiv  ovTWi'  \riGov  tov  Navrj  Pi^Xos- 
JvpiTWV  [i£ra  Trjs  rovd.  JlapaXsiiroiiEvcov  TrpwTri  fxETa  Trjg  6£VT£pai,  Baa-i^Eiov  -rrpcjTri  [xetu 
Trii  TETaprrjg.  avrr)  TpiTt)  VLEVTarEvy^oi.  AXKri  Yi£vTaT£V)^os  to  Aoi6£KaTTpo(priTOv ,  JHca- 
<aj,  l£jO£jU£aj,  Ic^e/ci/jX.  Aavir]\  Kaj  avTi)  r)  Jlpot^T]TiKr]  YiEVTaTEVxoi-  Y^^isivav  6e  aWai 
Svo,  aiTivES  £i<n  TOV  KaSpa  fiia  Kai  avrn'Xoyi^o[jLEvri^  Kai  ttXX/?  0i0Xos,  r]  ttis  Kadnp  Ka\£i- 
rai.  E,n\rjp(x}dr](Tav  ovv  ai  eikoctiSvo  Pi0\oi  KaTa  tov  apiQjxov  tcjv  eikogiSvo  otoi^eioji/ 
nap'  K^paiois.  At  yap  cTi^rtpEii  Svo  0il3\oi,  tjte  tov  TioXohcovtos  j;  JIavapETOS  \Eyo- 
j-iEVT],  Kai  T]  tov  Iriaov  rov  viov  'Lipa^,  EKyovov  Se  tov  Itjo-ou,  tov  Kai  ttjv  So^iaj/,  E0pai(TTi 
ypaipavTOi  r]V  o  EKyovoi  avrov  Xrjaovg  EpjAriVEvaas  eXXr/no-ri  EypaxpE,  Kai  avrai  ^prjai^oi 
yEv  Eiffif  Kai  (x)(p£\i[xoi,  aXX'  £is  apiQuov  prjrcov  ovk  avacpEpovrai.  Epipha.  de  Foilderi- 
bus  et  Mens.  3.  4.  pp.  161,  162. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  325 

are  twenty-two  letters  among  the  Hebrews,  five  of  which  have  a 
double  form.  For  Caph  is  double,  so  also  are  Mem  and  Nun,  and 
Phi  and  Zade.  But  since  five  letters  among  them  are  doubled, 
and  therefore,  there  are  really  twenty-seven  letters,  which  are 
reduced  to  twenty-two,  so,  for  this  reason,  they  enumerate  their 
books  as  twenty-two,  though  in  reality  twenty-seven.  For  the 
book  of  Ruth  is  joined  to  the  book  of  Judges  and  the  two  together 
are  counted  as  one  by  the  Hebrews.  The  first  and  second  Kings 
are  also  counted  as  one  book  :  and  in  like  manner,  the  third  and 
fourth  of  Kings  are  reckoned  as  one.  And  in  this  way  all  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  comprehended  in  five  penta- 
teuchs,  with  two  other  books  not  included  in  these  divisions.  Five 
pertain  to  the  Law,  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  Deu- 
teronomy. This  is  the  pentateuch  in  which  the  Law  is  contain- 
ed. Five  are  poetical  ;  Job,  Psalms,  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  Ec- 
clesiastes  and  Canticles.  Then  another  pentateuch  embraces 
the  Hagiographa,  Joshua,  Judges  and  Ruth,  first  and  second 
Chronicles,  first  and  second  Kings,  and  third  and  fourth  of  Kings. 
This  is  the  third  pentateuch.  Another  pentateuch  contains  the 
twelve  Prophets,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  Daniel.  Beside 
these  there  remain  the  two  books  of  Ezra  which  are  counted  as 
one,  and  the  book  of  Esther.  In  this  way  the  twenty-two  books 
are  made  out  according  to  the  number  of  the  Hebrew  letters.  As 
for  those  two  books,  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and  the  Wisdom 
of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach,  written  by  the  grandfather  in  Hebrew, 
and  translated  by  the  grandson  into  Greek,  they  are  profitable 
and  useful,  but  not  counted  in  the  number  of  the  received  books." 
VII.  The  following  is  the    canon   of  Gregory  Nazianzen.* 

*    \aropiKat  ficv  eiai  0t(3\oi  SvoKUiocKa  nairai, 

TlpcoTiiTTri  I^eveaiif  eiT    E^o^oj  A-evitikov  tc. 
Effcir'  ApiBfioi'   cira  Aevrepos  vofxoi. 
Eff£(r'  Ifjaovs  Kat  KjOirat  '    Pov0  oySorf. 
H  6'  EvvrjTr)  SeKarr}  re  0i(i\oi  npa^eti  BaffiX»7w»', 
Kat  TlapaXet^rojievat.      lEa^aTov  EaSpav  f;^£'S. 
At  6e  OTt^rjpai  nevTCy  oiv  irpiOToq  y'  Ico/?, 
ErrEira  AdViJ  '    tira  rpeii  JloXo^tovTiai, 
Eif<cXrj(T«a(Tr»jf,  A.(Tfia,  Kai  Utipot/zjiu. 
Kai  rcvd'  ofiono^  Trwv/iaroj  Trpo((.ffTtKov. 


326  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

There  are  twelve  historical  books  of  the  most  ancient  Hebrew 
wisdom:  the  first  Genesis;  then  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
Deuteronomy;  the  next  Joshua,  the  Judges,  Ruth,  the  eighth; 
ninth  and  tenth  the  acts  of  the  Kings,  and  then  the  Remains  and 
Esdras  the  last.  Then  the  five  books  in  verse,  the  first  Job, 
next  David,  then  the  three  books  of  Solomon,  Ecclesiastes,  the 
Song,  and  the  Proverbs.  The  prophetic  books  are  five  ;  the 
twelve  Prophets  are  one  book,  Hosea,  Amos,  Micah,  Joel,  Jonah, 
Obadiah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Malachi,  all 
these  make  one  book :  the  second  is  Isaiah,  then  Jeremiah,  Eze- 
kiel  and  Daniel :  which  make  twenty-two  books,  according  to  the 
number  of  the  Hebrew  letters." 

Vni.  To  the  same  purport  is  the  Poetical  canon  of  Amphi- 
lochius,  the  intimate  friend  of  Gregory  and  Basil,  given  in  a  let- 
ter which  he  wrote  to  Zeleuchus,  exhorting  him  to  the  study  of 
piety  and  learning. 

IX.  The  testimony  of  Jerome  is  clear,  pointed  and  explicit. 
In  his  famous  Prologus  Galeatus,  he  says:*   ''The  language  of 

Mtaj/  fiev  Cicriv  £f  ypa(pr)v  oi  SoiScKa^ 
Q,(Tr]£  /c'  AjUCjfj  Kai  ^li^aiag  o  TpiTOi  ' 

'Naovji  T£,   A.(il3aK0v^  re,  kul  2o0oi/tas, 
A-yyaios,  eira  Za^apiui,  MaXa;^ta5. 
Mju  jisv  oi6£.      AsvTepa  J'  Hcrataj. 
EneiO'  0  K^rjdtis  lepsfiius  £K/3pe(j)ovi, 
Etr'  E^s/ci/yX,  KQi  Aaviri\ov  ^apig. 
Ap)(^aios  jxcv  £Or]Ka  Svo  kui  eikocl  (SijSXovs, 
Lois  Ti^v  E/Jpatcoj/  ypajijiaciv  avriOETOvs. 

Greg.  Naz.  0pp.  torn.  ii.  p.  98- 

*  Viginti  et  duas  literas  (says  he  in  the  Prologus  Galeatus)  esse  apud  He- 
brasos,  Syrorum  quoque  lingua  Chaldaeorum  testatur  que  Hebraeos  magna  est 
parte  confinis  est.  Nam  et  ipsi  viginti  duo  elementa  habent  eodem  sono  et 
diversis  characteribus.  Porro  quinque  litterae  duplices  apud  Hebraeos  sunt : 
Caph.  mem.  nun.  pe.  sade.  Unde  et  quinque  a  plerisque  libri  duplices  existi- 
mantur,  Samuel,  Melachim,  Dibre  Hajamim,  Esdras,  Jeremias  cum  Cinoth,  id 
est  lamentationibus  suis.  Quomodo  igitur  viginti  duo  elementa  sunt,  per  quae 
scribimus  Hebraeice  omne  quod  loquimur,  et  eorum  initiis  vox  humana  compre- 
henditur :  ita  viginti  duo  volumina  supputantur,  quibus  quasi  literis  et  exordiis 
in  Dei  doctrina,  tenera  adhue  et  lactens  viri  justi  eruditur  infantia. 

Primus  apud  eos  liber  vocatur  Beresith,  quem  nos  Genesin  dicimus.    Secun- 
dus  Veelle  Semoth.     Tertius  Vajicra.id  est,  Leviticus.     Quartus  Vajedabber.- 


APOCRYPHA  DISCUSSED  AND  REFUTED.  327 

the  Syrians  and  the  Chaldees  is  a  standing  proof  that  there  are 
two  and  twenty  letters  amonfr  the  Hebrews.  But  among  the  He- 
brews five  letters  are  double,  Caph,  Mem,  Nun,  Pe,  Sade.  Hence 
by  most  men,  five  books  are  considered  as  double:  viz.  Samuel, 
Melachim  (Kings),  Dibri  Hajamin  (Chronicles),  Ezra,  Jeremiah 
with  Kinoth,  that  is,  the  Lamentations.  Therefore,  as  there 
are  twenty-two  letters,  so  twenty-two  volumes  are  reckoned. 
The  first  book  is  called  by  them,  Bresith,  by  us  Genesis ;  the 
second  is  called  Exodus;  the  third, Leviticus;  the  fourth, Num- 

quem  Numeros  vocamus.  QuintusElle  Haddebarim,  qui  Deuteronomiura  prae- 
notatur.  Hi  sunt  quinque  libri  Mosis,  quos  proprie  Thora,  id  est  Legem,  appellant. 

Secundum  Propiietarum  ordinem  faciunt,  et  incipiunt  ab  Jesu  filio  Nave, 
que  apud  eos  Josui  Ben  Nun  dicitur.  Deinde  subtexunt  Sophetim,  id  est  Judi- 
cum  librum  ;  et  in  eundam  compingunt  Ruth,  quia  in  diebus  Judlcum  facta 
ejus  narratur  historia.  Tertius  sequitur  Samuel,  quem  nos  Regum  primum  et 
secundum  dicimus.  Quartus  Melachim,  id  est  Regum  qui  tertio  et  quarto  Re- 
gum  et  volumine  contiuetur.  Melius  que  multo  est  Melachim,  id  est  Regum, 
quam  Melachoth,  id  est  Regnorum  dicere.  Non  enim  multarum  gentium  de- 
scribit  regna,  sed  unius  Israelitici  populi,  qui  tribibus  duodecim  continetur. 
Quintus  est  Esais,  sextus  Jeremeas,  Septimus  Ezechiel,  octavus  liber  duodecim 
Prophetarum,  qui  apud  illos  voeatur  Thereasee. 

Tertius  ordo  Hagiographa  possidet.  Et  primus  liber  incipit  a  Job,secundu3 
a  David,  quem  quinque  incisionibus  et  uno  Psalmorum  volumine  comprehend- 
unt.  Tertius  est  Salomon,  tres  libros  habens,  Proverbia,  quae  iJli  Misle,  id  est 
Parabolas,  appellant.  Quartus  Ecclesiastes,  id  est  Coheleth.  Quintus  Canti- 
cum  Canticorum,  quem  titulo  Sir  Hassirim  praenotant.  Sextus  est  Daniel, 
sepffmus  Dibre  Hajammim,  id  est,  verba  dierum,  quod  significantius  chronicon 
Totius  divinae  historiae  possumus  appellare,  qui  liber  apud  nos  Paralipomenon 
primus  et  secundus  inscribitur.  Octavus  Esdras,  qui  et  ipse  similiter  apud 
Graecos  et  Latinos  in  duos  libros  divisus  est.     Nonus  Esther. 

Atque  ita  fiunt  pariter  veteris  Legis  libri  viginti  duo,  id  est,  Mosis  quinque, 
«t  Prophetarum  octo,  Hagiographorum  novem. 

Quanquam  nonniilli  Ruth  ot  Cinoih  inter  Hagiographa  scribent,  et  hos 
libros  in  suo  putent  numero  supputandos,  ac  per  hoc  epse  priscaD  Legis  libros  vi- 
ginti quatuor. 

Hie  prologus  Scripturarura  quasi  Galeatum  principium  ojiinibus  libris,  quos 
ide  Hebrapo  vertimus  in  Latinum,  convenire  potest :  ut  scire  valeanius,  quicquid 
extra  hos  est,  inter  apocrypha  esse  ponendum.  Igitur  Sapientia,  qua;  vulgo 
Salomonis  inscribitur,  et  Jesu  filii  Sirach  liber,  et  Jiulilh,  et  Tobias,  et  Pastor 
non  sunt  in  canone.  Macchabaeorum  primum  librum  Hebraicnm  reperi.  Se- 
cundus Grapcu.«  est.  quod  rx  ipsa^uoque  phrasi  prnhnri  potnst 


328  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

bers;  the    fifth,  Deuteronomy.      These  are  the   five    books    of 
Moses,  which  they  call  Thora,  the  law.     The  second  class  con- 
tains the  prophets,  which  they  begin  with  the  book  of  Joshua, 
the  son  of  Nun.     The  next  is  the  book  of  the  Judges,  with 
which  they  join  Ruth,  her  history  happening  in  the  time  of  the 
Judges.     The  third  is  Samuel,  which  we  call  the  first  and  second 
book  of  the  Kingdoms.     The  fourth  is  the  book  of  the  Kings,  or 
the  third  and  fourth   book  of  the  Kingdoms,  or  rather  of  the 
Kings ;  for  they  do  not  contain  the  history  of  many  nations,  but 
of  the  people  of  Israel  only — consisting  of  twelve  tribes.     The 
fifth  is  Isaiah;   the  sixth,  Jeremiah ;    the  seventh,  Ezekiel ;  the 
eighth,  the  book  of  the  twelve  Prophets.     The  third  class,  is 
that  of  Hagiographa,  or  sacred  writings ;    the  first  of  which  is 
Job  ;  the  second,  David,  of  which  they  make  one  volume,  called 
the  Psalms,   divided   into  five  parts ;    the  third  is  Solomon,  of 
which  there  are  three  books — the  Proverbs,  or  Parables,  as  they 
call  them — the  Ecclesiastes,  and  the  Song  of  Songs ;  the  sixth  is 
Daniel,  the  seventh  is  the  Chronicles,  consisting  with  us  of  two 
books,  called  the  first  and  second  of  the  Remains;  the  eighth  is 
Ezra,  which  among  the  Greeks  and  Latins  makes  two  books ; 
the  ninth  is  Esther.     Thus  there  are  in  all  two  and  twenty  books 
of  the  old  law ;  that  is,  five  books  of  Moses,  eight  of  the  prophets, 
and  nine  of  the  Hagiographa.     But  some  reckon  Ruth  and  the 
Lamentations  among  the  Hagiographa;    so  there  will  be   four 
and  twenty.     This  prologue  I  write  as  a  preface  to  all  the  books 
to  be  translated  by  me  from  the  Hebrew  into  Latin,  that  we 
may  know  that  all  the  books  which  are  not  of  this  number,  are 
to  be  reckoned  -Apocryphal  ;  therefore,  Wisdom,   which  is  com- 
monly called  Solomon's,  and  the  book  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach, 
and  Judith,  and  Tobit,  and  the  Shepherd,  are  not  in  the  canon. 
The  first  book  of  Maccabees  I  have  found  in  Hebrew ;  the  second 
is  Greek,  as  is  evident  from  the  style."      We  have  two  other 
catalogues  furnished  by  Jerome,  one  in  the  Bibliotheca  Divina, 
and  the  other  in  a  letter  to  Paulinus,   both  exactly  according 
with  this. 

To  these  testimonies  may  be  added  a  passage  which  occurs 
in  the  Preface  to  his  translations  of  the  books  of  Solomon  ;*  "  I 

*  Tres  libros  Salomonis,  id  est,  Proveibia,  Ecclesiasten,  Canticum  Canti- 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  329 

have  translated,"  says  he,  "the  three  books  of  Solomon,  that  is, 
the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiasies  and  Canticles,  from  the  ancient  ver- 
sion of  the  Seventy.  As  for  the  book  called  by  many  the  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon,  and  Ecclesiasticus,  which  all  know  to  be  writ- 
ten by  Jesus  the  Son  of  Sirach,  I  have  forborne  to  translate 
them;  for  it  was  my  intention  to  send  you  a  correct  edition  of 
the  canonical  Scriptures,  and  not  to  bestow  labor  upon  others." 
In  the  Prologue  to  his  translation  of  Jeremiah,  he  says,*  "  he 
does  not  translate  the  book  of  Baruch,  because  it  was  neither  in 
the  Hebrew,  nor  received  by  the  Jews."  He  also  condemns  the 
Apocryphal  additions  to  Daniel,  as  not  found  in  the  Hebrew,  and 
as  having  exposed  Christians  to  ridicule,  for  the  respect  which 
they  paid  to  them.t  Although  he  translated  Tobit  and  Judith, 
from  Chaldee  into  Latin,  yet  he  pronounces  each  of  them  to  be 
Apocryphal.  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus  and  Maccabees,  he  never 
translated  at  all. 

It  is  perfectly  plain  from  these  testimonies,  that  Jerome  ac- 
knowledged no  other  books  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  inspired, 
but  those  which  were  received  by  the  Jews;    and   it  deserves  to 

coram,  veteri  Septuaginta  interpretum  auctoritate  reddidi.  Porro  in  eo  libro, 
qui  a  plerisque  sapientia  Salomonis  inscribitur,  et  in  ecclesiastico,  quern  esse 
Jesu  filii  Sirach  nullus  ignorat,  calamo  temperavi ;  tantummodo  canonicas 
Scripturas  vobis  emendare  desiderans,  et  studium  meum  certis  magis  quam 
dubiis  conimendare. — Pr.  in  Libr.  Salom.  juxta  Septuag.  Interp.  t.  i.  p.  1419. 

*  Libram  autem  Baruch,  notarii  ejus,  qui  apud  Hebraeos  nee  legitur,  nee 
habetur,  praetermissimus. — Prol.  in  Germ.  t.  i.p.  554. 

t  Hoc  idcirco,  ut  diffictiltatoin  vobis  Danielis  ostenderem  ;  qui  apud  He- 
braeos nee  SusannjB  habet  historiam,  nee  Hymnum  trium  puerorum,  nee  Belis 
Draconisque  fabulas  ;  quas  nos,  quia  in  toto  orbe  dispersae  sunt,  vero  anteposito 
easque  jugulante,  subjecimus  ;  ne  videremur  apud  imperitos  magnam  partem 
voliiminis  detruncasse.  Audivi  ego  quendam  de  proeceptoribus  Judaeorum, 
quum  Susannae  derideret  historiam,  et  a  Graeco  ncscio  quo  diceret  esse  con- 
fectam,  illud  opponere  quod  Origeni  quoque  Africanus  opposuit,  ctymologias 

has,   airo    rov    o-xivov    a^Kxai,    Kai    mro    rov    irpii'Jv  -rrpio-ai,  de  GraJCO    serinonc    de- 

scendere.  Deinde  tantum  fuissc  otii  tribus  puevis  cavillabatur,  ut  in  camino 
aestuantis  ineendii  metro  ludercnt,  et  per  ordinem  et  laudeni  Dei  omnia  ele- 
menta  provocarent.  Aut  quod  miraculum  divinacque  aspirationis  judicum,  vel 
draconem  interfectum  offa  picis,  vel  sacerdotum  Belis  machinas  deprehensas  1 
QuaB  magis  prudentia  solertes  viri  quam  prophetati  spiritu  perpetrata. — Pr.  in 
Dan.  f.  i.p.  990. 

15* 


330  ROMANIST  ARGUMENTS  FOR  THE 

be  remarked  that  he  characterized  the  Hebrew  canon  as  emphati- 
cally the  "  canon  of  Hebrew  verity."  It  was  alone  the  infallible 
testimony  of  truth. 

The  testimony  of  Jerome  is  felt  to  be  so  important  and  con- 
clusive, that  Romanists  have  resorted  to  various  expedients  for 
the  purpose  of  obviating  its  force.  In  the  first  place  it  has  been 
contended  that  he  was  not  treatinor  of  the  canon  of  the  Christian 
Church,  nor  of  the  books  which,  in  his  own  opinion,  ought  to 
be  received  as  inspired,  but  only  of  those  which  the  Jews  ac- 
knowledged. This  objection,  however,  is  so  plainly  inconsistent 
with  the  language  which  Jerome  employs,  that  Bellarmin,  too 
wise  to  defend  it,  frankly  confesses  that  it  is  utterly  without  foun- 
dation. It  is  amazing  how  Cocceius,  Catharinus  and  Canus 
could  gravely  have  proposed  an  explanation  of  this  sort,  when  it 
was  clearly  written  before  them  that  *'  the  Church  reads  such 
and  such  books,  but  does  not  receive  them  as  canonical." 

Cardinal  Perron,  who  admits,  however,  that  Jerome  was  treat- 
ing of  the  Christian  canon,  resorts  to  a  solution  so  exceedingly 
ridiculous,  that  one  cannot  but  conjecture  that  the  Cardinal  him- 
self was  laboring  under  just  the  opposite  infirmity.  In  his  opin- 
ion, Jerome  had  not  reached,  when  he  wrote  his  memorable  pro- 
logue, the  ripeness  of  his  studies.  It  is  hard  to  fix  any  precise 
and  definite  period  for  the  development  and  maturity  of  the  in- 
tellectual powers.  But  to  be  an  infant  at  fifty — and  such  was 
the  age,  according  to  the  lowest  calculation,  which  the  venerable 
Father  had  then  attained* — is  an  infirmity  so  closely  approx- 
imating to  absolute  idiocy,  that  the  Cardinal,  I  apprehend,  will 
find  it  much  more  easy  to  convince  his  readers  that  he  himself 
was  on  the  borders  of  dotage,  than  that  the  author  of  such  a 
composition  as  the  Prologus  Galeatus,  was  either  a  victim  of  im- 
becility of  mind,  or  the  extravagance  and  rashness  of  youth. 

It  has  also  been  attempted  to  destroy  the  force  of  this  testi- 
mony, by  asserting  that  he  rejected  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
This,  however,  is  so  far  from  being  true,  that  he  actually  cites 
the  Epistle  under  the  name  of  Paul,  and  distinctly  declares  that 

*  Jerome  wrote  his  Prologue  about  the  year  392.     He  was  born  according 
to  Baroniua  about  the  year  340  ;  according  to  others  he  was  bprn  still  earlier. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  331 

fee  received  it  as  authentic*  He  says,  to  be  sure,  that  others 
-doubted  of  it,  but  that  is  very  different  from  calling  it  into  ques- 
tion himself. 

It  is  finally  contended  that  he  subsequently  changed  his 
opinions.  But  of  this  fact  no  evidence  can  be  produced.  The 
Jesuits,  indeed,  tell  us  that  in  his  Apology  against  Ruffin,  he  re- 
tracted the  censure  which  he  had  formerly  pronounced  upon  the 
spurious  additions  to  Daniel — that  in  his  Preface  to  Tobit,  he 
impugns  the  integrity  of  the  Hebrev/  canon — in  his  Preface  to 
Judith,  and  his  exposition  of  the  Psalms,  he  revokes  what  he  had 
said  of  the  book  of  Judith,  and  in  his  commentary  upon  Isaiah, 
retracts  his  assertions  in  relation  to  the  Maccabees.  Such  are 
the  grounds  upon  which  it  is  contended  he  changed  his  opinions. 
It  would  be  very  easy,  by  a  particular  examination  of  the  pas- 
sages which  are  cited,  to  show  that  there  is  no  foundation  what- 
ever for  any  of  these  assumptions. 

In  reference  to  the  Apocryphal  additions  to  Daniel,  Ruffinus 
was  as  far  from  admitting  their  inspiration,  as  Jerome  himself. 
He  could  not,  therefore,  with  the  least  degree  of  propriety  or 
consistency,  censure  his  former  friend  for  opinions  which  they 
held  in  common.  But  Jerome  was  understood  to  say,  in  his 
Preface  to  Daniel,  that  the  stories  of  Susannah,  and  of  Bel  and 
the  Dragon,  were  mere  fabulous  narrations.  This  is  what  he 
explains  in  his  Apology  against  Ruffinus.t  He  asserts  that  he 
had  been  misunderstood,  and  that  when  he  used  such  language  in 
reference  to  these  tales,  he  was  not  giving  his  own  opinion  of  their 
value,  but  the  sentiments  of  the  Jews.  He  was  willing  to  admit 
that  they  might  be  usefully  and  profitably  read,  but,  so  far  was 
he  from  subscribing  to  their  Divine  inspiration,  that  he  reiterates 
the  approbation  which  he  had  formerly  given  of  the  Reply  of 
Origen  to  Porphyry,  who  had  quoted  these  works — "  that  they 
were  not  possessed  of  the  authority  of  Scripture,  and  therefore 
Christians  were  not  bound  to  defend  them."  There  is,  conse- 
quently, but  one  principle  on  which  Jerome  can  be   made  to  en- 

*  Nos  et  Apoc.  et   Rpisiolavi  Fauli  ad   Hehrcpos  recipimus. — Epist.  ad 
Dardanum. 

f  Apol.  Q  ndv."*.  RnfP.n 


332  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

dorse  the  claims  of  these  wretched  fictions,  and  that  is,  whatever 
he  did  not  believe  to  be  fabulous^  he  must  have  believed  to  be 
inspired. 

In  his  Preface  to  Tobit,  there  is  no  retraction  whatever. 
He  simply  states  that  he  had  yielded  to  the  desire  of  the  Bishops 
who  had  urged  him  to  translate  it,  although  in  so  doing  he  was 
aware  that  he  had  exposed  himself  to  the  reproach  of  the  Jews. 
He  adds,  however,  that  he  judged  it  better  to  displease  the  Phar- 
isees, than  to  disregard  the  injunctions  of  the  Bishops.*  But 
surely  to  translate  a  book — a  book  w^iich  was  allowed  to  be  read 
in  the  church,  and  was  commended  as  a  fit  introduction  to  piety, 
(for  so,  many  of  the  ancients  regarded  it,)  does  not  necessarily 
imply  that  it  was  held  to  be  inspired.  And  yet  Jerome's  expres- 
sions of  willingness  to  displease  the  Jews,  and  to  translate  Tobit 
at  the  earnest  request  of  his  friends,  is  all  the  proof  upon  which  it 
is  asserted  that  he  changed  his  mind  in  regard  to  it.  I  pay  no 
attention  to  the  obviously  corrupted  passage  in  which  he  repre- 
sents the  Jews  as  ranking  this  book  in  the  class  of  Hagiographa. 
The  word  Hagiographa  is  an  evident  mistake  of  the  copyist  for 
Apocrypha — and  so  the  ablest  doctors  among  the  Romanists 
themselves  have  agreed.f  The  glaring  falsehood  of  the  asser- 
tion, upon  any  other  supposition,  is  enough  to  show  that  the  text 
is  vitiated. 

So  again  it  is  contended  that  he  changed  his  opinion  in  ref- 
erence to  Judith,  because  he  yielded  to  the  entreaty  of  his  friends, 
and  consented  to  translate  it.  He  was  the  more  induced  to  do 
so,  because  the  book  itself  presented  an  eminent  example  of  chas- 
tity, and  was  suited  to  edify  the  people,  and  because  the  story 
went  that  the  Council  of  Nice  had  inserted  it  in  the  canon.  J  On 
these  grounds  he  translated  the  work,  but  not  a  hint  does  he 
drop  that  he  received  it  as  inspired.  We  may  therefore  con- 
clude in  the  words  of  Bishop  Cosin  :  "  And  thus  have  we  made 
it  to  appear   that  St.  Jerome  was  always  constat   herein  to  him- 


*  Prefat.  in  Tobiam. 

t  Comestor,  Hugo  the  Cardinal,  Tortatus,  Driedo,  Catharin.  have  all  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  a  corrupt  reading. 
X  Prefat.  in  Judith. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  333 

self.  For  in  the  year  392  he  avowed  his  translation  of  the  Bible, 
before  which  he  placed  his  Prologus  Galeatus,  as  a  helmet  of  de- 
fence against  the  introduction  of  any  other  books  that  should 
prelend  to  be  of  equal  authority  with  it.  Not  many  years  after, 
he  wrote  his  Preface  upon  Tobit  and  Judith,  and  therein  he 
changed  not  his  mind.  About  the  same  time  he  wrote  his  Com- 
mentary  upon  the  Prophet  Haggai  and  his  Epistle  to  Turia, 
wherein  the  book  of  Judith  reniaineth  uncanonized.  In  the  year 
390  he  wrote  his  Epistle  to  Laeta,  and  therein  he  is  still  constant 
to  his  Prologue.  About  the  same  year  he  wrote  upon  the  Pro- 
phet Jonas,  where  the  book  of  Tobit  is  kept  out  of  the  canon. 
In  the  year  400  (or  somewhat  after)  he  wrote  upon  Daniel,  and 
there  Susannah,  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  have  no  authority  of  Divine 
Scripture.  And  at  the  same  time  he  wrote  his  Apologie  against 
Ruffin,  where  he  referreth  to  his  former  Prologues,  and  expressly 
denieth  any  retraction  of  them.  About  the  year  409  he  wrote 
upon  Esay,  where  he  revoketh  nothing.  And  in  the  latter  end 
of  his  age,  he  set  forth  his  Commentary  upon  Ezechiel,  wherein 
he  acknowledged  no  more  books  of  the  Old  Testament  than  he 
had  counted  before,  but  continued  his  belief  and  judgment  herein 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  which  followed  not  long  after." 

X.  I  shall  next  give  the  testimony  of  Ruffinus,*  once  the  beloved 

*  Hie  igitur  spiritus  sanctus  est,  qui  in  veteri  testamento  legem  etprophetas, 
in  novo  evangelica  et  apostolos  inspiravit.  Unde  apostolus  dicit:  omnis  Scrip- 
tura  inspirata  utilis  est  ad  docendum.  Et  ideo  quae  sunt  novi  ac  veteiis  Testa- 
menti  voluinina,  quae  secundum  majorum  traditionem  per  ipsum  spiritum  sanc- 
tum inspirata  creduntur,  et  ecclesiis  Christi  tradita,  competens  videtur  hoc  in 
ioco  evidenti  numero,  sicut  ex  patrum  monumentis  accepimus,  designare.  Ita- 
que  veteris  Testamenti  omnium  primo  Moysi  quinque  libri  sunt  traditi,  Genesis, 
Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numerus,  Deuteronomium  ;  post  haec  Jesus  Nave,et  Judicum, 
simul  cum  Ruth.  Quatuor  post  haec  Regnorum  libri,  quosHebraei  duos  numer- 
ant.  Paralipomena,  qui  Dieiiim  dicitur  Liber,  et  Esdrse  duo,  quia  a  pud  iilos 
singuli  compulantur,  et  Hester.  Prophetarum  vero  Isaias,  Jeremias,  Ezechiel, 
et  Daniel,  preterea  duodccim  Prophetarum,  liber  unus.  Job  quoque,  et  Psalmi 
David  singuli  sunt  libri.  Salomon  vero  tres  ecclesiae  tradidit,  Proverbia,  Eccle- 
siasten,  Canticum  Canticorum.  In  his  concluserunt  numerum  librorum  veteris 
Testamenti.  Sciendum  tamen  est,  quod  et  alii  libri  sunt,  qui  ne  sunt  canonici, 
sed  ecclesiastici  a  majoribus  appellati  sunt ;  ut  est  sapientia  Salomonis,  et  alia 
Sapientia,  quae  dicitur  filii  Sirach,  qui  liber  apud  Latinos,  hoc  ipso  generali  vo- 
cabulo.  Erclesia.stirus   appellatur.  Dure  Via',  vol  Jndirium  Petri.     Quae   omnia 


334  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

friend,  and  afterwards  the  open  and  avowed  adversary  of  Jerome. 
In  his  Exposition  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  he  says,  ''This,  then, 
is  the  Holy  Spirit  who,  in  the  Old  Testament,  inspired  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  and  in  the  New,  the  Gospels  and  Epistles. 
Wherefore  the  Apostle  says,  that  '  all  Scripture  is  given  by  in- 
spiration of  God,  and  is  profitable  for  doctrine.'  It  will  not, 
therefore,  be  improper  to  enumerate  here  the  books  of  the  New 
and  the  Old  Testament,  which  we  find  by  the  monuments  of  the 
Fathers  to  have  been  delivered  to  the  churches  as  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  And  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  first  place,  are 
the  five  books  of  Moses  :  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
Deuteronomy.  After  these  are  Joshua  the  Son  of  Nun,  and  the 
Judcres,  toorether  with  Ruth.  Next,  the  four  books  of  the  King- 
doms,  (which  the  Hebrews  reckon  two,)  the  book  of  the  Remains 
which  is  called  the  Chronicles,  and  two  books  of  Ezra,  which  by 
them  are  reckoned  one,  and  Esther.  The  Prophets  are  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  Daniel,  and  besides,  one  book  of  the 
twelve  Prophets.  Job,  also,  and  the  Psalms  of  David.  Solomon 
has  left  three  books  to  the  churches  :  the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes, 
and  the  Song  of  Songs;  with  these  they  include  the  number  of 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  However,  it  ought  to  be  ob- 
served that  there  are  also  other  books  which  are  not  canonical, 
but  have  been  called  by  our  forefathers,  ecclesiastical :  as  the 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  and  another,  which  is  called  the  Wisdom 
of  the  Son  of  Sirach  ;  and,  among  the  Latins,  is  called  by  the 
general  name  of  Ecclesiasticus.  By  which  title  is  denoted,  not 
the  author  of  the  book,  but  the  quality  of  the  writing.  In  the 
same  rank  is  the  bookof  Tobit,  and  the  books  of  the  Maccabees. 
In  the  New  Testament  is  the  book  of  the  Shepherd  or  of  Her- 
nias, which  is  called  the  Two  Ways,  or  the  Judgment  of  Peter. 
All  which  they  would  have  to  be  read  in  the  churches,  but  not 

legi  quidem  in  ecclesiis  voluerunt,  non  tamen  proferii  ad  auctoritatem  ex  his 
fidei  confirmandam.  Caeteras  vero  scripturas  apocryphas  nominarunt  quas  in 
ecclesiis  legi  noluerunt.  Hsec  nobis  a  patribus,  ut  dixi,  tradita,  opportunum 
visum  est  hoc  in  loco  designare,  ad  instructionem  eorani,  qui  prima  sibi  eccle- 
siae  ac  fidei  elementa  suscipiunt,  ut  sciant  ex  quibus  sibi  fontibus  verbi  Dei  hau- 
rienda  sint  pocula. — Ruffin.  in  Symb.  ap  Cyprian  in  App.  pp.  26,  27,  et  np 
Hier.  t.  V.  pp.  141.  142. 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED    AND    REFUTED.  335 

to  be  alleged  by  way  of  authority  for  proving  articles  of  faith. 
Other  Scriptures  they  called  Apocryphal,  which  they  would  not 
have  to  be  read  in  the  churches." 

XL  I  shall  close  this  list  of  testimonies  with  the  canon  of  the 
Council  of  Laodicea,  which  was  afterwards  confirmed  at  Con- 
stantinople in  the  close  of  the  seventh  century.  The  closing  de- 
crees are  in  these  words  :*  "  Private  Psalms  should  not  be  read 
in  the  church,  nor  any  books  which  are  not  canonical,  but  only 
the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  The  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  which  ought  to  be  read  are  these  :  I,  The 
Genesis,  or  generation  of  the  World  ;  2,  The  Exodus  out  of 
Egypt;  3,  Leviticus;  4,  Numbers;  5,  Deuteronomy;  6,  Joshua 
the  son  of  Nun ;  7,  Judges  with  Ruth ;  8,  Esther ;  9,  The  first 
and  second  books  of  Kings;  10,  The  third  and  fourth  books  of 
Kings;  11,  The  first  and  second  books  of  Chronicles  ;  12,  The 
first  and  second  books  of  Esdras  ;  13,  The  book  of  150  Psalms; 
14,  The  Proverbs  of  Solomon  ;  15,  The  Ecclesiastes  ;  IG,  The 
Song  of  Songs  ;  17,  Job  ;  18,  The  twelve  Prophets  ;  19,  Isaiah  ; 
20,  Jeremiah  and  Baruch,  the  Lamentations  and  Epistle;  21, 
Ezekiel  ;  22,  Daniel." 

The  only  serious  exception  which  can  be  taken  to  the  testi- 
mony of  this  Council,  is  the  fact  that  in  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament  the  Apocalypse  of  John  is  omitted.  There  are  three 
hypotheses  upon  which  this  difficulty  may  be  removed,  each  of 
which  is  fatal  to  the  inspiration  of  the  books  in  question. 

In  the  first  place,  it  might  have  been  the  design  of  the  Fathers 
simply  to  prescribe  the  books  which  should  be  read ;  and  as  the 
Apocalypse  was  of  an  abstruse  and  mystical  character,  they  might 
have  thought  it  expedient  to  leave  it  out  in  the  public  services 
of  the  church.     But  no  such  objections  could  have  been  alleged 

*  On  ov  ^ci  iSio)riKOVi  ^PaX/iovj  'ScyeoOat  ev  rt]  CKKXrjcria,  ov^c  UKut'oitara  Pt0}ita, 
aWn  jiDfit  ja  KavoviKa  rrji  TTa'Xaiag  Kai  Kaivr/i  SiaBrinrii. 

Offti  hi  PtP\ia  avaytvioaKcadat  rr/f  naXaiai  diaOrjKr}^  •  a'  Fcj'C'TK  Ivonjiov.  d'  E|- 
oCoi  fs  AiyvTOV.  y'  A.tviTiKov.  (V  A-piOjioi.  e'  AcvTcpovofitoi'.  j'  I/jffot's  ISari;. 
('  l\.pirai,  PovO.  7]'  YiaQi)p.  0'  BaaeXeuov  a  Kut  13' .  j/3'  EcrJpaf  a'  Kai  (i' .  ty'  (ii- 
8\oi  ^PaX/i(0»'.  i6'  TIapotiitai  SiXo/iMj/roj.  ic'  KKK-'SriataaTrji.  n'  Aff/ia  Aff^arwr.  i^' 
\(x)!3.  IT)'  Si'ih-Kt^  UpofnTai.  id'  Hffrtuaj.  ik'  Icpc/ua?,  Kai  Bupovx,  Qprivoi  KUi  Kirt- 
fTToXai.  Kii'  Ic^£(f(>7>.  ^7?'  Aui'(7?X  Cavon  of  the  Cmmril  nf  Lnndirrn.  —  Lnh- 
bcns  p.t  Copnrt,  torn.  i.  p.  5007. 


836  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

against  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus  and  Maccabees.  These  books 
were  held  to  be  eminently  useful,  and  specially  adapted  to  the 
instruction  and  improvement  of  recent  converts.  Their  omis- 
sion, therefore,  cannot  be  explained  upon  the  same  principle  with 
the  omission  of  the  Apocalypse.  Why  then  were  they  not  admit- 
ted into  the  canon  ?  But  one  answer  can  be  given,  and  that  is, 
they  were  not  canonical.  Though  upon  this  hypothesis,  the  de- 
cree of  Laodicea  did  not  require  all  canonical  books  to  be  read, 
yet  it  permitted  none  to  be  used  which  were  not  canonical. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Fathers  might  not  have  been  satis- 
fied that  the  Apocalypse  was  really  the  work  of  John.  It  was 
the  last  of  the  sacred  books,  and  the  evidences  of  its  inspiration 
might  not  have  been  fully  known  to  the  bishops  at  Laodicea. 
The  primitive  Christians  guarded  the  Scriptures  with  diligence 
and  care,  and  were  willing  to  admit  no  book  into  the  canon  of 
inspiration  until  they  had  thoroughly  examined  its  credentials. 
This  very  caution  gives  us  greater  confidence  in  their  opinions, 
as  it  is  a  strong  security  that  nothing  was  done  rashly  or  without 
adequate  foundation.  But  if  the  Apocrypha  had  been  delivered 
by  Christ  and  his  apostles  to  the  Christian  church  as  inspired 
compositions,  the  evidenc,e  of  the  fact  must  have  been  as  exten- 
sive as  the  Gospel  itself.  To  doubt  of  them,  therefore,  is  to 
condemn  them.  If  the  evidence  of  their  inspiration  was  un- 
known in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  it  must  forever  re- 
main in  obscurity.  The  authors  of  the  books  had  been  dead  for 
centuries — their  names  and  memorials  had  vanished  from  the 
earth  :  there  was  no  possibility  of  directly  proving  that  they  had 
confirmed  their  commission  by  signs  and  wonders.  The  only 
evidence  which  ihe  church  could  enjoy  was  the  testimony  of 
men  who  were  known  to  be  inspired,  and  the  only  men  to  whom 
they  could  appeal  were  the  apostles  of  Christ,  and  if  for  four  cen- 
turies no  traces  are  found  of  any  testimony  borne  by  those  chosen 
heralds  of  the  truth  to  the  divine  authority  of  these  books,  their 
claims  must  be  abandoned  as  totally  incapable  of  proof 

The  Revelation  of  John  and  the  Apocryphal  books  did  'not 
stand  upon  the  same  footing.  There  were  abundant  means  of 
proving  that  the  one  was  written  by  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved,  while  there  were  no  means  whatever  of  attesting  the  other 


APOCRYPHA    DISCUSSED     \ND    REFUTED.  337 

to  be  the  word  of  God.  The  fathers,  therefore,  might  have 
been  subsequently  satisfied  in  reference  to  the  one,  w  hicli  tliey 
never  could  have  been  in  reference  to  the  other. 

Finally,  the  Apocalypse  may  have  been  omitted  in  transcrib- 
ing the  canon,  by  the  negligence  of  copyists.  This,  I  take  to  be 
the  true  solution  of  the  difficulty.  In  some  editions,  the  Epistle 
to  Philemon  is  left  out  and  in  others  inserted.  But  it  would  have 
been  an  extraordinary  blunder  to  have  omitted  through  mistake 
such  a  collection  of  books  as  those  which  compose  the  Apocry- 
pha. Whichever,  therefore,  of  these  hypotheses  we  may  choose 
to  adopt  to  explain  the  difficulty  in  reference  to  Revelation,  the 
Apocrypha  must  be  rejected. 

The  testimony  of  the  Christian  church  for  four  hundred  years 
has  now  been  briefly  reviewed,  and  we  find  an  universal  concur- 
rence in  the  canon  of  the  Jews.  North  and  south,  east  and  west, 
in  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  the  most  learned  and  distinguished  de- 
fenders of  the  faith,  however  widely  they  differed  or  warmly  dis- 
puted upon  other  points,  are  cordially  at  one  whenever  they  treat 
of  the  documents  which  constitute  the  Rule  of  Faith.  In  all  their 
catalogues  the  Apocrypha  are  excluded  ;  and  in  some  instances 
it  is  expressly  added  that  they  were  not  to  be  received,  as  Trent 
assures  us  they  should  be,  with  the  same  piety  and  veneration 
which  are  due  to  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms.  How, 
if  Christ  and  His  apostles  had  delivered  these  books  to  the  Chris- 
tian church  as  inspired  and  authoritative  records,  how  can  we 
explain  the  amazing  unanimity  of  the  primitive  fathers  in  rejecting 
them  from  the  sacred  canon?  How  comes  it  that,  in  no  quarter 
of  the  earth,  the  injunctious  of  apostles  were  respected,  but  that 
even  in  the  churches  which  had  been^planted  by  their  hand  and 
bedewed  by  their  blood,  in  sixty  years  after  the  last  of  their  num- 
ber had  retired  to  his  long  repose,  these  books  were  excluded 
from  a  place  in  the  list  of  inspired  compositions  ?  The  fact  is 
utterly  inexplicable;  and  if  with  the  mass  of  historical  testimony 
which  has  already  been  arrayed  against  their  pretensions  to  Di- 
vine authority,  they  are  after  all  a  veritable  part  of  the  Word  ofGod, 
truth  and  fiction  are  confounded,  moral  reasoning  is  at  an  end — 
and  all  responsibility  for  conduct  or  opinions  must  for  ever  cease. 

In  the   first  place,  they    were   confessedly   rejected    by    the 


:^3S  ROMANIST    ARGUMENTS    FOR    THE 

Jewish  church.  The  writers  themselves  were  Jews;  and  if  they 
had  been  able  to  attest  their  inspiration  by  signs  and  wonders 
and  mighty  works,  the  only  credentials  of  a  messenger  from  hea- 
ven, their  own  nation  must  have  known  the  fact.  Yet  the  Jews 
with  one  voice  repudiate  these  books.  In  the  next  place,  they 
were  rejected  by  the  Son  of  God.  For  he  approved  and  confirm- 
ed the  Hebrew  canon.  And  finally,  they  were  rejected  for  four 
hundred  years  by  the  whole  body  of  the  Christian  church.  And 
yet,  with  all  this  amount  of  historical  evidence  against  them, 
Trent  has  the  audacity  to  declare  that  they  are  entitled  to  equal 
veneration  with  Moses,  the  Prophets,  Evangelists  and  Apostles; 
and  when  every  other  argument  fails  her,  she  only  adds  to  her 
arrogance  and  blasphemy  by  pretending  to  "thunder  with  a 
voice  like  God" — to  imitate  the  very  style  of  Jehovah,  and  to 
command  the  nations  to  receive  her  canon,  because  she  says  it  is 
Divine. 


APPENDIX. 

From  the  Spirit  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 
THE     APOCRYPHAL     BOOKS. 

BY    PROFESSOR  THORNWELL. 

In  nothincr  is  the  intolerable  arroorance  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
more  strikingly  displayed,  than  in  the  authority  which,  if  she  does 
not  formally  claim,  she  yet  pretends  to  exercise,  of  dispensing  the 
Holy  Ghost  not  merely  to  men  themselves,  but  also  to  their  wri- 
tings. Thus  the  famous  Council  of  Trent  has  attempted  to  make 
that  divine  which  is  notoriously  human,  and  that  inspired  which,  in 
the  sense  of  the  Apostle,  is  notoriously  of  "  private  interpretation." 
We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  conduct  of  Rome  in  placing  the 
Apocrypha  upon  an  equal  footing  with  the  sacred  oracles  of  God. 
Among  the  books  which  the  "  holy  (Ecumenical  and  general 
Council  of  Trent,  lawfully  assembled  in  the  Holy  Spirit,"  has 
declared  should  be  received  with  equal  piety  and  veneration  with 
the  unquestioned  word  of  God,  and  which  indeed  have  God  for 
their  author,  are  Tohit,  Judith,  the  additions  to  the.  Hook  of  Es- 
ther, Wisdom,  Ecchisiasticus,  liaruch  with  the  Epistle  of  Jer- 
emiah, the  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  the  story  of  Susannah,  the 
story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  and  the  frst  and  second  books  of 
Maccabees. 

Having  by  its  own  authority  constituted  these  books  a  part  of 
the  Word  of  God,  the  Holy  Council  proceeded  to  pronounce  its 
usual  malediction  upon  all  who  would  not  receive  them  as  sacred 
and  canonical.  Now  in  direct  opposition  to  this  wicked  and 
blasphemous  sentence  of  Rome,  we  assert  most  unhesitatingly, 
and  shall  endeavor  triumphantly  to  prove,  that  these  books,  com- 
monly called  the  Apocrypha,  are  neither  "  sacred  nor  canonical," 


340  APPENDIX, 

and  of  course,  have  no  more  authority  in  the  Church  of  God 
than  Seneca's  Letters,  or  Tully's  Offices. 

Let  it  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  onus  probandi  rests  upon 
the  Papists.  The  presumption  is  against  them  until  they  adduce 
satisfactory  testimony  in  behalf  of  their  extravagant  pretensions. 
Nay,  even  defect  of  proof  is  fatal  to  their  cause.  They  bring  us 
certain  documents  and  declare  that  they  were  given  by  inspiration 
of  God.  We  are  bound  to  treat  these  documents,  as  we  treat  all 
other  writings,  merely  as  human  productions,  until  clear  and  co- 
gent arguments  for  the  Divine  original  are  submitted  to  our  un- 
derstandings. Hence,  the  Protestant  cause  is  fully  made  out  by 
failure  of  proof  on  the  Part  of  the  Romanists.  We  are  not  re- 
quired in  justification  of  our  position,  to  advance  a  single  argu- 
ment against  the  inspiration  of  these  books.  Our  course  is  a 
righteous,  a  necessary  one,  until  they  are  proved  to  be  inspired. 
We  think  it  important  that  this  high  vantage  ground  of  Protest- 
antism, in  the  argument  upon  this  subject,  should  be  fully  appre- 
hended. Not  because  we  are  unable  to  prove  that  these  books 
are  not  inspired,  but  in  order  that  it  may  be  distinctly  understood 
that  all  our  positive  arguments  against  them  are  ex  abundanti — 
are  over  and  above  what  is  actually  required  of  us  in  the  case. 
If  our  position  is  justified  by  failure  on  the  part  of  Rome  to  es- 
tablish her  assertion,  it  is  more  than  justified — it  is  doubly  forti 
fied  and  rendered  wholly  impregnable  by  the  irresistible  argu- 
ments which  we  are  able  to  allege  against  the  inspiration  of  the 
Apocryphal  books.  With  the  distinct  understanding,  then,  that 
we  are  doing  a  work  which  justice  to  our  own  cause  does  not  ab- 
solutely require,  but  which  only  exposes  in  a  stronger  light  the 
arrogance  and  blasphemy  of  Rome,  we  proceed  to  show  by  a  few 
positive  considerations,  that  these  books  have  not  the  shadow 
of  a  claim  to  Divine  inspiration. 

1.  Our  first  argument  is  drawn  from  the  indisputable  fact  that 
these  books  were  not  found  in  the  canon  of  the  Jews  in  the  time 
of  our  Saviour  and  his  Apostles.  It  is  even  doubted  by  learned 
men  whether  some  of  them  existed  at  all,  until  some  time  after 
the  last  of  the  Apostles  had  fallen  asleep.  But  be  this  as  it  may, 
they  were  not  in  the  sacred  canon  of  the  Jews  or  the  catalogue 
of  books  which  the  whole  nation  received  as  coming  from  God, 


APPENDIX.  341 

We  have  very  clear  testimony  upon  the  subject  of  the  Jewish 
canon,  in  Josephus,  Philo,  the  Talmucl,  and  the  early  Christian 
Fathers.  It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  these  testimonies  at  full 
length.  Those  who  have  not  access  to  the  original  works,  may 
find  them  faithfully  collated  in  Schuidius  De  Canone  Sacro,  and 
Wi  Eichhorri's  Einleitung.  We  would  particularly  commend  to 
the  reader's  attention  Merncmann's  book  De  Canone  Philonis. 
Augustine  again  and  again  confesses  that  the  Apocrypha  formed 
no  part  of  the  Jewish  canon.  He  declares  that  Solomon  was  not 
the  author  of  the  books  of  Ecclesiasticus  and  of  Wisdom,  and  as- 
sures us,  moreover,  that  these  books  were  chiefly  respected  by 
the  Western  Christians.  He  informs  us  that  Judith  was  not  re- 
ceived by  the  Jews;  and  his  testimony  in  relation  to  Maccabees 
is  equally  decisive.  We  insist  upon  the  testimony  of  Augustin, 
which  maybe  found  in  his  Treatise  DeCiv.Dei,  lib.  i.c.17,  because 
he  had  evidently  a  very  great  respect  for  these  books,  for  he 
frequently  quotes  them  ;  and  because  he  was  a  member  of  the 
bodies  whose  decisions  in  their  favor  have  been  strongly  and 
earnestly  pleaded.  We  take  it  then  to  be  a  fact  which  no  scho- 
lar would  think  of  calling  into  question,  sustained  by  the  con- 
curring testimony  of  Jews  and  Christians  for  four  hundred  years 
after  Christ,  that  the  Jews  rejected  the  Apocrypha  from  their 
canon.  For  the  purpose  of  our  present  argument  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary to  show  what  books  they  did  receive,  nor  how  they 
classed  and  arranged  them.  It  is  enough  that  they  had  a  canon 
which  they  believed  to  be  inspired,  and  that  in  it  the  Apocrypha 
were  not  included. 

Now  our  argument  is  this  :  Jesus  Christ  and  his  Apostles  ap- 
proved of  the  Jewish  canon,  whatever  it  was,  appealed  to  it  as 
possessing  divine  authority,  and  evidently  treated  it  as  at  that 
time  complete,  or  as  containing  the  whole  of  God's  revelation 
as  far  as  it  was  then  made.  If  the  Apocrypha  had  been  really  a 
part  of  that  revelation,  and  the  Jews  had  either  ignorantly  or 
wickedly  suppressed  it,  how  comes  it  that  Christ  nowhere  re- 
bukes them  for  their  error?  We  find  him  severely  inveighing 
against  the  Pharisees  for  adding  to  the  Word  of  God  by  their 
vain  traditions,  but  not  a  syllable  do  we  hear  in  regard  to  what 
was  equally  culpable,  their  taking  from  it,  which  they  certainly 


342  APPENDIX. 

had  done  if  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired.  Here  was  confessed- 
ly a  great  teacher  and  prophet  in  Israel — their  long-expected 
Messiah,  who  constituted  the  burden  of  their  Scriptures,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  testimony  ;  and  yet  while  he  quotes  and  approves 
the  canon  of  the  Jews,  and  remands  the  Jews  themselves  to  their 
own  Scriptures,  he  nowhere  insinuates  that  their  sacred  library 
was  defective.  If  the  Jews  had  done  wrong  in  rejecting  the 
Apocrypha,  is  it  credible  that  he  who  came  in  the  name  of  God, 
a  teacher  sent  from  God  to  reveal  fully  the  Divine  will,  would 
have  passed  over  without  noticing  such  a  flagrant  fraud?  We 
find  him  reproving  his  countrymen  for  every  other  corruption  in 
regard  to  sacred  things  of  which  they  are  known  to  have  been 
guilty,  but  not  a  whisper  escapes  his  lips  or  the  lips  of  his  Apos- 
tles touching  this  gross  supi)ression  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
Word  of  God.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible,  that  neither  Jesus 
nor  his  Apostles  believed  in  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Apocry- 
pha ;  they  knew  that  they  were  not  inspired.  We  will  grant  the 
Romanist  what  he  cannot  prove,  and  what  ive  can  disprove,  that 
these  books  are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  This  will  not 
remove  the  difficulty.  According  to  his  views  of  the  canon,  the 
Jews  were  guilty  of  an  outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the  Sacred 
Oracles,  and  yet  neither  Christ  nor  his  Apostles,  whose  business 
it  was  to  give  us  the  ichole  revelation  of  God,  ever  charged  them 
with  this  fraud,  or  took  any  steps  to  restore  the  rejected  books  to 
their  proper  places.  Christ,  as  the  great  Prophet  of  the  Church, 
was  unfaithful  to  his  high  and  solemn  trust,  if  he  stood  silently 
by  when  the  Word  of  God  was  trampled  in  the  dust,  or  buried 
in  obscurity,  or  even  robbed  of  its  full  authority.  To  the  Jews 
were  committed  the  Oracles  of  God  (Rom.  iii.  2.) ;  if  they  be- 
trayed their  trust,  we  ought  to  have  been  informed  of  it  before 
the  lapse  of  sixteen  centuries. 

It  is  in  vain  to  allege  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  used  the 
Septuagint,  and  that  this  version  contained  the  Apocrypha.  In 
the  first  place,  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the  Septuagint  at  that 
time  did  contain  the  Apocrypha;  in  the  second  place,  if  it  did 
contain  them,  the  difficulty  is  rather  increased  than  lessened. 
The  question  is,  What  books  did  the  Jews,  to  whom  were  com- 
mitted the  Oracles  of  God,  receive  as  inspired?     Did  Christ 


APPENDIX.  IW3 

know  that  they  rejected  the  Apocrypha  from  the  list  of  inspired 
writings  ?  If  so,  and  the  Septuagint  version  was  in  his  hands, 
and  really  contained  these  rejected  books,  what  more  natural 
than  that  Christ  should  have  told  his  apostles  that  here  are  books 
which  the  Jews  reject,  but  which  you  must  receive ;  they  are  of 
equal  authority  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms? 
His  total  silence  both  before  the  Jews  and  his  own  disciples  be- 
comes more  unaccountable  than  ever,  if  the  books  were  actually 
before  him  and  almost  forced  upon  his  notice  by  the  version  of 
the  Scriptures  which  he  used.  But  we  do  not  insist  upon  this, 
because  we  do  not  believe  that  the  Septuagint,  at  that  time,  con- 
tained the  Apocrypha.*  If  it  should  be  said  that  the  Jews  re- 
ceived these  books  as  inspired  but  did  not  insert  them  in  the 
canon,  because  they  had  not  the  authority  of  a  prophet  for  doing 
so,  why  is  it  that  Christ  did  not  give  the  requisite  authority, 
if  not  to  the  Popish  priests  and  rulers,  at  least  to  his  own  Apos- 
tles? 

Upon  every  view  of  the  subject,  then,  the  silence  of  Christ 
is  wholly  unaccountable,  if  these  writings  are  really  inspired.  It 
becomes  simple  and  natural  upon  the  supposition  that  they  were 
merely  human  productions.  The  Jews  had  done  right  in  reject- 
ing them  ;  they  stood  upon  a  footing  with  other  literary  works, 
and  our  Saviour  had  no  more  occasion^to  mention  them,  than  he 
had  to  mention  the  writings  of  the  Greek  Philosophers. 

2.  If  it  should  be  pretended  that  Christ  did  give  his  Apostles 
authority  to  receive  these  books,  though  no  record  was  made  of 
the  fact,  we  ask  how  it  comes  to  pass — and  we  mention  this  as  our 
second  arjTument  aorainst  them — that  for  four  centuries  the  unbro- 
ken  testimony  of  the  Christian  church  is  against  their  inspiration  ? 
They  are  not  included  in  the  catalogues  given  by  Melito,t  Bish- 
op of  Sardis,  who  flourished  in  the  second  century,  of  Origen,! 
Athanasius,§  Hilary, ||  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,^  Epiphanius,**  Gre- 
gory   Nazianzen,tt    Ruflinus,||    and  others;    neither   are  they 


*  Viii.  Schmidius  de  Canoiie.  t  Euseb   lib.iv.  c.  '2G. 

X  Expos.  Psal.  i.  0pp.  torn,  ii.  Euseb.  vi.  25.  §  Pasch.  Epist. 

II  Proloo;.  in  Fsalmos.  IT  4th  Cate.  Excr.  **  Hffires.  i.  6. 

tt  Can.  23.  ft  Expos,  ad  symb.  apost. 


344  APPENDIX. 

mentioned  among  the  canonical  books  recognized  by  the  council 
of  Laodicea.  As  a  sample  of  the  testimonies  referred  to  in  the 
margin,  we  v/ill  give  a  ^ew  passages  from  Jerome,  the  author  of 
the  authentic  version  commonly  called  the  Vulgate.  In  the 
preface  concerning  all  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  which  he 
prefixed  to  his  Latin  translation  of  Samuel  and  Kings,  after  hav- 
ing given  us  the  Jewish  canon,  he  says,  "  Hie  prologus  scriptu- 
rarum,  quasi  Galeatum  principium  omnibus  libris  quas  de  He- 
braeo  vertimus  in  Latinum  convenire  potest :  ut  scire  valeamus 
quicquid  extra  hos  est,  inter  Apocrypha  esse  ponendum." 
"  Therefore,"  he  adds,  "  Wisdom,  which  is  vulgarly  attributed 
to  Solomon,  and  the  book  of  Jesus,  the  son  of  Sirach,  and  Judith, 
and  Tobias,  and  Pastor,  are  not  in  the  canon."  His  testimony 
in  relation  to  the  Maccabees,  is  equally  divided.  In  the  pro- 
logue to  his  Commentary  on  Jeremiah,  he  declines  explaining 
the  book  oi  Baruch,  which  in  the  edition  of  the  LXX  is  com- 
monly joined  with  it,  because  the  Jews  rejected  it  from  the 
canon,  and  he  of  course  knew  of  no  authority  for  inserting  it. 
In  the  preface  to  his  translation  o{  Daniel,  he  assures  us  that 
the  story  of  Susannah,  the  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  and  the 
Fables  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  are  not  only  not  in  the  Jewish 
copies,  but  had  exposed  Christians  to  ridicule  for  the  respect 
which  they  paid  to  them.  In  his  preface  to  Tobit  and  Judith 
he  pronounces  them  Apocryphal  ! 

Here,  then,  about  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  we  find  no 
remnant  of  any  unwritten  tradition  from  Christ  and  his  apostles, 
authorizing  the  Church  to  receive  these  books.  The  early  fa- 
thers followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Jews,  and  unanimously 
concurred  in  receiving  no  other  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  as 
inspired,  but  that  which  came  down  to  them  through  the  Jewish 
Church.  In  this  opinion,  learned  men  in  every  age  have  con- 
curred, up  to  the  very  meeting  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  We 
refer  to  such  men  as  Cardinal  Ximenes,  Ludovicus  Vives,  the 
accomplished  Erasmus,  and  Cardinal  Cajetan.  How  could 
there  have  been  such  a  general  concurrence  in  an  error  so  de- 
plorable, if  Christ  and  his  apostles  had  ever  treated  these  books 
as  the  lively  oracles  of  God  ?  Surely  there  would  have  been 
some  record — some  hint — of  a  fact  so  remarkable.     We  ask  the 


APPENDIX.  345 

Romanist  to  reconcile  the  testimonies  of  the  Fathers  witli  the 
decree  of  Trent.  In  the  lanjruage  of  Bishop  Burnet :  "  Here 
we  have  four  centuries  clear  for  our  canon,  in  exclusion  of  all 
additions.  It  were  easy  to  carry  this  much  further  down,  and 
to  show  that  these  books  (the  Apocrypha)  were  never  by  any 
express  definition  received  into  the  canon,  till  it  was  done  at 
Trent,  and  that  in  all  ages  of  the  church,  even  after  they  came 
to  be  much  esteemed,  there  were  divers  writers,  and  those  gene- 
rally the  most  learned  of  their  time,  who  denied  them  to  be  a 
part  of  the  canon. 

3.  The  third  argument  which  we  shall  bring  forward  is 
drawn  from  the  books  themselves.  In  reading  them  we  not 
only  are  struck  with  the  absence  of  that  "  heavenliness  of  mat- 
ter, efficacy  of  doctrine,  majesty  of  style,  concert  of  all  the  parts, 
and  general  scope  of  the  whole  to  give  glory  to  God,"  by  which 
the  sacred  Scriptures  abundantly  evidence  themselves  to  be  the 
word  of  God,  but  we  are  as  forcibly  struck  with  defects  utterly 
inconsistent  with  these  excellences.  To  say  nothing  of  their 
silly  and  ridiculous  stories,  these  books  notoriously  contain 
palpable  lies,  gross  anachronisms,  flat  contradictions,  and  doc- 
trinal statements,  wholly  irreconcilable  with  what  we  are  taught 
in  the  unquestioned  oracles  of  God,  Such  things  are  totally 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  inspiration. 

It  would  be  easy  to  make  good  these  charges  by  citations 
from  the  books,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  protract  our  article  by 
quotations  which  have  again  and  again  been  made  for  the  same 
purpose. 

What,  under  the  present  head,  we  wish  particularly  to  re- 
mark, is,  that  these  books,  or  at  least  several  of  them,  virtually 
disclaim  all  pretensions  to  inspiration.  They  do  not  profess  to 
be  the  word  of  God,  and  why  should  Protestants  be  blamed  for 
not  conceding  to  them  an  authority  which  they  themselves  do 
not  claim?  They  come  to  us  from  their  authors  merely  as 
human  productions — we  treat  them  as  such,  and  yet  we  are 
consiorned  to  the  damnation  of  hell,  because  we  do  not  believe 
that  a  writer  was  inspired,  when  he  did  not  believe  it  himself! 

The  author  of  the  second  book  of  Maccabees  professes  to  have 
abridged  a  work  of  Jason  ofCvrene,  and  concerning  his  perform- 

1 T) 


346  APPENDIX. 

ance,  he  holds  the  following  language,  which  can  be  reconciled 
with  a  belief  on  his  part  that  he  w^as  inspired,  when  light  is  made 
to  have  fellowship  with  darkness,  and  God  with  Belial,  and  not 
till  then  : — "  Therefore,  to  us  that  have  taken  upon  us  this  pain- 
ful labor  of  abridging,  it  was  not  easy,  but  a  matter  of  sweat  and 
watching,  even  as  it  is  no  ease  to  him  that  prepareth  a  banquet, 
and  seeketh  the  benefit  of  others ;  yet  for  the  pleasing  of  many, 
we  will  undertake  gladly  this  great  pains,  leaving  to  the  author 
the  exact  handling  of  every  particular,  and  laboring  to  follow  the 
rules  of  an  abridgment,"  &c  (2  Mac.  ii.  26,  seq.)  Here  his 
motives,  as  assigned  by  himself,  are  such  as  induce  ordinary  men 
to  vv^rite,  and  his  method  is  taken  from  the  common  rules  of  crit- 
icism. In  other  words,  it  is  obviously  a  human  composition,  and 
was  intended  to  have  no  more  authority  than  any  other  historical 
document.  To  the  same  purport  is  the  following  sentence  near 
the  close  of  the  book  :  "  And  if  I  have  done  well,  and  as  is  fitting 
the  story,  it  is  that  which  I  desired;  but  if  slenderly  and  meanly, 
it  is  that  which  I  could  attain  unto."  Is  this  the  language  of  a 
man  who  "  spake  as  he  was  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost?"  Does 
he  seem  to  have  drawn  from  the  inexhaustible  fountain  of  Divine 
truth,  or  from  the  shallow  resources  of  his  own  mind  ?  Verily, 
none  but  a  madman  could  speak  on  this  wise,  and  yet  believe 
that  he  was  inspired  of  God,  The  prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus — 
a  production  of  Jesus  the  Son  of  Sirach — is  just  as  decisive  in 
reference  to  it.  As  it  is  too  long  to  quote,  we  shall  content 
ourselves  by  simply  referring  to  it.  The  writer  asks  pardon  for 
a  defective  interpretation  of  a  Hebrew  document,  and  declares 
that  his  whole  performance  was  the  result  of  diligence  and  tra- 
vail, of  great  watchfulness  and  skill.  And  yet,  according  to  the 
Romanist,  instead  of  being  the  product  of  human  thought  and 
labor,  it  was  the  supernatural  dictation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The 
pretence  in  this  case  is  too  absurd  for  argument.  In  the  first 
book  of  Maccabees,  we  are  assured  that  there  was  not  a  prophet 
or  inspired  man  in  Israel  to  direct  them  what  to  do  with  the  al- 
tar which  had  been  profaned.  (1  Mac.  iv.  46.)  The  same  decla- 
ration is  repeated  in  the  course  of  the  book  again,  and  yet,  con- 
trary to  his  own  testimony,  we  are  required  to  believe  that  the 
writer  himself  was  inspired.     In  fact,  it  was   the  universal  opin- 


APPENDfX.  347 

ion  of  the  Jewish  nation,  that  inspiration  ceased  with  Malachi, 
not  to  be  revived  until  the  dawn  of  the  new  dispensation,  and 
that,  consequently,  no  books  which  were  written  after  the  time 
of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus  were  worthy  of  any  credit  as  inspired 
records. 

We  might  go  over  each  of  the  Apocryphal  books,  one  by  one, 
and  produce  such  numerous  instances  of  falseliood,  error,  con- 
tradiction, and  absurdity,  as  to  render  it  utterly  impossible  that 
any  should  attribute  them  to  God  but  those  whose  credulity  is 
enormous  enough  to  swallow  down  the  nonsense  and  blasphemy 
of  transubstantiation,  and  to  believe  that  God  can  be  multiplied 
by  the  million  without  disturbing  His  unity,  and  made  at  will, 
out  of  cakes  and  wine,  without  detracting  from  His  glory.  Such 
men  can  believe  any  thinor  and  to  such  men  it  is  useless  to  uro-e 
the  authority  of  Christ  and  his  apostles — vain  to  allege  the  con- 
curring testimony  of  the  leading  writers  of  the  primitive  church — 
vainer  still  to  plead  absurdity,  contradiction  and  lies,  and  even 
implied  disclaimers  from  the  writings  in  question  ;  they  have  an 
authority  higher  than  all  these.  The  Council  of  Trent  has  spo- 
ken— the  man  of  sin  and  the  son  of  perdition,  who  has  given  out 
that  he  is  God,  has  spoken  from  his  throne  of  blasphemy  and 
abominations;  and  the  voice  of  a  general  council  and  the  Pope 
is  enough  to  silence  reason,  to  sanctify  blasphemy,  and  to  canon- 
ize falsehood. 

But  to  tliose  who  are  not  yet  fastened  as  captives  to  the  car 
of  Rome,  we  appeal  in  the  confident  expectation  of  success. 
Can  any  candid  and  unprejudiced  mind  believe  that  these  books 
proceeded  from  God,  when  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  to 
establish  the  fact — when  the  Jewish  church,  to  which  were  com- 
mitted the  Oracles  of  God,  rejected  them — when  Christ  and 
his  Apostles  rejected  them — when  for  four  centuries  united 
Christendom  rejected  them — when  up  to  the  very  time  of  the 
meetino-  of  Trent,  the  most  enlightened  inembers  of  the  church 
of  Rome  rejected  them — when,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the  books 
themselves  do  not  profess  to  be  inspired,  and  abound  in  absurd- 
ity, contradiction  and  lies?  Despising  the  authority  of  Popes 
and  Councils,  we  bring  the  matter  to  the  bar  of  sober  reason  and 
sound  argument,  and  we  challenge  Rome  to  vindicate  herself 
from  the  charge  of   intolerable    arrogance  and  blasphemy  in  her 


348  APPENDIX. 

corrupt  additions  to  the  word  of  God.  The  argument  which  she 
uses  with  her  own  vassals  will  not  do  among  thinking  men.  Until 
she  can  adduce  clear,  decided,  unanswerable  proof  of  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Apocrypha,  all  who  reverence  God  or  love  their  race, 
are  solemnly  bound  to  reject  these  books,  and  to  treat  them  pre- 
cisely as  all  Protestant  churches  always  have  treated  them. 
Rome  may  denounce  her  anathema  against  us,  but  we  know  full 
well  that  the  terrible  malediction  of  God  rests  upon  her.  It  is 
not  a  light  matter  whether  we  receive  or  reject  these  writings. 
If  they  are  not  inspired,  those  who  receive  them  run  the  risk  of 
everlasting  damnation — if  they  are,  those  who  reject  them  are 
exposed  to  the  same  danger. 

That  Protestants  reject  them  because  they  contain  unpalata- 
ble doctrines,  is  a  fiction  of  the  Roman  Priesthood  to  divert  at- 
tention from  the  real  state  of  the  argument.  Light  is  death  to 
their  cause,  and  therefore  they  resort  to  every  trick  of  sophistry 
and  of  falsehood  to  obscure  the  question  at  issue,  and  to  escape 
unexposed  in  their  frauds  and  impostures.  We  reject  them  be- 
cause thty  are  not  inspired,  and  we  shall  continue  to  do  so  until 
the  contrary  is  clearly  proved,  as  well  as  boldly  asserted.  Let 
the  Romanist  come  up  manfully  to  the  point  of  inspiration — that 
is  the  issue  between  us,  and  upon  that  issue  we  are  always  ready 
to  meet  them. 


LETTER  I. 

To  the  Reverend  James  H.  Thornwell,  Professor  of  the  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity^ S/-C. 

Reverend  Sir,  I  need  offer  no  apology  for  thus  publicly  address- 
ing you.  The  Columbia  Chronicle  of  the  15th  ult.,  forwarded 
tome  a  few  weeks  ago  by  a  friend,  contains  an  article  under  your 
name  on  what  you  term  the  Apocryphal  Books,  which  at  my  request 
the  Editors  of  the  Miscellany  republish  together  with  this  letter. 
The  character  of  that  article  is  such  as  to  render  it  no  longer  an 
intrusion  either  on  you  or  on  the  public  thus  to  vindicate  the 
Catholic  church  from  your  attacks. 

Permit  me  to  take  this  occasion  of  expressing,  once  for  all, 
my  regret  at  finding  an  essay  from  you  so  plentifully  interspersed 


APPENDIX.  349 

with  the  vulgar  epithets  papist,  Romanist,  and  such  manifestations 
of  ill  feeling  as  the  expressions  vassals  of  Rome  and  captives  to 
the  car  of  Romc^  the  assertion  that  'our  credulity  is  enormous  ' 
and  your   mocking   language    concerning  the   awful    mystery  of 
transubstantiation  and  the  church,  with  which  even  in  quotation 
I  am   unwilling   to  sully  my  pen.     Believe  me,  Reverend  Sir, 
such  invectives   contain   no   argument.     They  are  unbecoming 
the  subject,  and,  may  I  presume  to  add,  the  dignified  station  you 
occupy.     Your  essay  would  have  lost  none  of  its  weight,  and  to 
Catholics  would   have  been   infinitely  less  revolting,   had   they 
been  omitted.     Catholics  are  neither   outcasts  from  society  nor 
devoid  of  feeling  ;  they  are  neither  insensible  to,  nor  think  ihey 
deserve,  such  words  of  opprobrium.     It  is  true  we  have  often  to 
draw  on   our  patience,  for  the  rules  of  courtesy  are   frequently 
violated  in  our  regard.     Still    it  is  painful  to  see   a  Professor 
descending  from   calm,  gentlemanly  and  enlightened   argument, 
to  mingle  with  the  crowd  of  those  whose  weapons  are  misrepre- 
sentations  and   abuse.     To  me  it  is  doubly  painful   when   such 
language  obliges  me  not  to   respect  as  highly  as  I  would  desire 
those  whom  I  address.     I  will  not  recur  to  this  disagreeable  top- 
ic, but  will  endeavor  to  write  as  if  your   arguments  were  unac- 
companied by  what  Catholics  must  consider  as  insults. 

I  cordially  agree  with  you  that  '  it  is  not  alight  matter  wheth- 
er we  receive  or  reject  those  writings'  which  are  contained  in  the 
canon  of  the  holy  Scriptures  as  received  by  the  Catholic  church, 
and  are  excluded  from  that  generally  adopted  by  the  different  de- 
nominations of  Protestantism.  Still  I  am  not  prepared  to  unite 
unconditionally  in  your  denunciatory  clauses.  Undoubtedly  all 
who  know  the  truth,  are  bound  to  believe  and  profess  it;  other- 
wise they  *  run  the  risk  of  eternal  damnation.'  All  too  are 
bound,  according  to  their  ability,  sincerely,  earnestly^and  perse- 
veringly  to  seek  the  truths  of  revelation  on  this  as  on  all  other 
points  ;  and  those  who,  having  the  means,  neglect  to  do  so,  *  are 
exposed  to  the  same  danger.'  Still  there  may  bedhers  to  whom 
Divine  Providence  has  not  vouchsafed  such  means  ;  and  they  as- 
suredly will  not  be  punished  for  not  performing  an  impossibility. 
Your  essay  contains  some  preliminary  remarks  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  church  to  declare  what  books  are  sacred  and  canonical, 


350  APPENDIX. 

and  on  the  state  of  the  question  ;  and  lays  down  three  arguments 
to  prove  that  the  books  in  question  are  not  inspired.  I  shall 
take  up  these  different  heads  in  order,  and  trust,  by  a  few  remarks 
in  this  and  perhaps  two  or  three  other  letters,  to  convince  a  '  can- 
did and  unprejudiced  mind  by  sound  argument  and  sober  reason,' 
that  the  Catholic  church  has  not  been  guilty  of  the  heinous  crime 
you  lay  at  her  door,  that  of  making  corrupt  additions  to  the  word 
of  God. 

You  commence  with  the  following  remarks  : 

''  In  nothing  is  the  intolerable  arrogance  of  the  church  of 
Rome  more  strikingly  displayed,  than  in  the  authority,  which  if 
she  does  not  formally  claim,  yet  she  pretends  to  exercise,  of  dis- 
pensing the  Holy  Ghost  not  merely  to  men  themselves  but  also 
to  their  writings.  Thus  the  famous  Council  of  Trent  has  at- 
tempted to  make  that  divine  which  is  notoriously  human,  and 
that  inspired  which,  in  the  sense  of  the  apostle,  is  notoriously  of 
'  private  interpretation.'  We  allude,  of  course,  to  the  conduct 
of  Rome  in  placing  the  Apocrypha  upon  an  equal  footing  with 
the  sacred  oracles  of  God.  Among  the  books  which  the  '  holy 
oecumenical  and  general  Council  of  Trent,  lawfully  assembled 
in  the  Holy  Spirit'  has  declared  should  be  received  with  equal 
piety  and  veneration  with  the  unquestioned  word  of  God,  and 
which  indeed  have  God  for  their  author,  are  Tobit,  Judith,  the 
additions  to  the  book  of  Esther,  Wisdom,  Ecdesiasticus,  Baruch 
with  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah,  the  songs  of  the  three  children,  the 
story  of  Susannah,  the  story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  and  the  first 
and  second  books  of  Maccabees. 

''  Having  by  its  own  authority  constituted  these  books  a  part 
of  the  word  of  God,  the  Holy  Council  proceeded  to  pronounce  its 
usual  malediction  upon  all  who  would  not  receive  them  as  sacred 
and  canonical." 

I  doubt  not.  Reverend  Sir,  you  here  accurately  express  your 
conception  of  what  the  Council  of  Trent  did  in  regard  to  the 
Scriptures.  But  your  terms  express  neither  the  belief  of  Catho- 
lics nor  the  action  of  the  Council.  A  Canon  I  have  always  un- 
derstood to  be  a  list  or  a  catalogue,  setting  forth  what  books  are 
inspired,  not  giving  or  dispensing  inspiration  to  uninspired 
books.     A  work  to  be  entitled  to  place  in  a  canon  must  be  be- 


AP1»ENDIX.  351 

lieved  already  inspired;  and  if  believed  to  be  inspired  at  any  one 
period  it  mnst  be  believed  to  have  been  always  inspired.  Until 
a  canon  is  formed,  a  catalogue  of  inspired  works  drawn  up,  man- 
ifestly though  many  works  may  be  sacred  hecduse  inspired,  none 
can  be  canonical,  because  none  can  be  inserted  in  a  catalocrue 
which  does  not  yet  exist.  He  who  forms  a  canon  must  naturally 
first  decide  what  books  are  and  what  are  not  inspired.  Did  the 
council  of  Trent  in  making  such  a  decision  '  display  intolerable 
arrogance?'  Reverend  Sir,  your  essay  claims  to  contain  a  de- 
cision on  that  point,  w^hich  according  to  the  rules  and  maxims 
of  Protestantism  proceeds  from  your  own  authority  to  decide 
for  yourself,  and  for  which  you  alone  are  responsible.  If  you 
alone,  and  the  fathers  of  Trent  together,  are  equally  qualified  to 
make  that  decision,  then  must  the  same  terms  which  you  apply 
to  them,  be  applicable  to  yourself.  If  on  the  contrary  any  one 
should  think  you  personally  inferior  to  them  in  the  qualifications 
of  learning  and  research  on  this  point,  then,  unless  charity  and 
courtesy  forbid  him,  as  certainly  they  do  me,  must  he  look  for 
expressions,  if  possible,  more  bitter  and  harsh  than  your  own.  I 
presume,  however,  that  the  ardor  with  which  you  engaged  in  the 
contest,  blinded  your  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  while  you  made  your 
very  first  thrust  at  the  Council,  you  fatally  exposed  yourself  to 
the  retort. 

We  believe  that  the  church  of  Christ  will  ever  know,  and  be- 
lieve, and  teach  his  doctrines  and  precepts  ;  that  He  has  secured 
to  her  the  possession  of  the  truths  of  his  revelation  through  the 
ministry  of  that  body  of  pastors,  of  which  the  apostles  were  the 
first  members,  and  whom  he  appointed  his  delegates  and  sent 
forth  to  '  baptize  all  nations,  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  he  had  taught  them,'  guaranteeing  at  the  same  time 
that  he  would  be  with  them  in  the  performance  of  this  duty  all 
DAYS,  even  to  the  consummation  of  the  world.  He  promised 
tiiem  the  Spirit  of  truth  who  should  teach  them  all  truth.  Hence 
vvc  hold  that  the  apostles  and  their  successors  in  the  ministry  in 
the  first  and  second,  and  in  every  succeeding  century,  /lavc  taught 
and  toill  continue  to  the  end  of  the  world  to  teach  all  things  that 
He  taught  them  originally  ;  and  when  they  testify  that  any  doc- 
trine is  one  of  those  originally  taught  by  the  Saviour,  and  hand- 


352 


APPENDIX, 


ed  down  to  them  by  their  predecessors  in  the  mniistry,  we  feel 
bound  to  hear  them,  His  delegated  teachers,  as  we  would  hear 
Him,  from  whom  they  received  their  authority,  and  we,  the  assur- 
ance that  He  is  with  them,  and  teaches  through  them. 

I  will  not,  Reverend  Sir,  enter  at  large  on  the  general  proofs 
on  this  point.  I  might  show  that  our  doctrine  is  fully  sustained 
by  the  words  of  the  Saviour  himself,  that  it  has  ever  been  recog- 
nized and  acted  on  from  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity,  that  the 
contrary  is  opposed  to  reason  and  the  infinite  wisdom  of  God,  in- 
asmuch as  it  would  ever  leave  us  in  doubt  and  indecision,  and  as 
only  through  it  can  all  learn,  with  that  certainty  which  is  requir- 
ed for  an  unhesitating  assent  of  reason,  what  doctrines  have  been 
in  truth  revealed  by  the  Saviour.  To  attempt  to  establish  all  this 
would  be  to  depart  too  far  from  the  subject  I  have  undertaken 
to  treat.  I  will  consider  it  simply  in  reference  to  the  canon  of 
Scripture,  and  hope  to  show  that  the  authority  claimed  by  the 
Catholic  Church  of  determining  the  canon,  that  is,  of  authorita- 
tively declaring  what  books  have  been  committed  to  her  care  by 
the  apostles  as  inspired,  and  have  ever  been  revered  as  such,  so 
far  from  being  a  'striking  display  of  intolerable  arrogance,'  must 
be  admitted,  if  the  Christian  world  generally  is  to  possess  any 
certainty  of  divine  inspiration. 

In  the  first  place  it  seems  strange  to  me  that  you  should  so 
severely  condemn  the  Catholic  church  for  having  presumed  to 
draw  up  a  canon.  It  is  nothing  more  than  many  denominations 
of  Protestants,  your  own.  Rev.  sir,  included,  have  done.  In  the 
thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  and  of  the  Protest- 
ant Episcopal  church  in  the  United  States,  in  the  Articles  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  church,  and  in  the  Westminster  Confes- 
sion of  the  Presbyterians,  we  find  canons  of  the  Scriptures. 
Nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  several  Ecclesiastical  bodies, 
as  these  denominations  are,  should  give  forth  to  its  members  and 
the  world,  through  what  each  according  to  its  peculiar  polity 
recognizes  as  its  proper  tribunal,  decisions  on  this  all-important 
point.  In  the  Catholic  church,  a  general  council  is  deemed  a 
proper  tribunal,  and  when  circumstances  required  it,  the  Catholic 
church  through  such  a  tribunal  gave  her  declaration.  I  am  not 
now  speaking  of  the  accuracy  of  the  decision,  but  of  the  '  author- 


APPENDIX.  353 

ity  exercised  '  in  making  it.  In  styling  it  *  a  striking  display  of 
intolerable  arrogance,'  you  strike  a  blow  which  harms  us  not,  but 
recoils  with  tenfold  force  on  your  own  denomination.  Surely,  if 
the  persons  assembled  at  Westminster  could  draw  up  a  canon  or 
catalogue  of  what  they  were  of  opinion  should  be  received  and 
acknowledged  by  all  as  inspired  books,  the  Catholic  church 
could  through  her  bishops  assembled  in  council  declare  too  what 
books  had  ever  been  handed  down  in  her  bosom  as  the  word  of 
God.  If  it  was  no  arrogance  in  the  first  to  put  forth  a  decree, 
which  was  valueless,  because  on  their  own  principles  it  bound 
no  one  and  which  every  member  of  your  communion  has  a  right 
to  reform,  and  which  some  to  my  own  knowledge  do  reform  ;  it 
was  certainly  none  in  the  Catholic  church  to  pronounce  a  decree 
which  circumstances  required,  and  which  her  children  through- 
out the  world  felt  had  some  weis^ht.  You  micjht  contend  that 
the  Catholic  church  has  no  commission  from  God  to  make  such 
decisions,  that  Catholics  err,  when  they  believe  them  to  possess 
some  value.  That  would  be  attacking  our  doctrine.  But  it 
strikes  me  as  strange  that  this  particular  exercise  of  authority 
should  be  singled  out  for  condemnation  by  a  divine  of  a  church 
which,  without  even  claiming  this  commission  or  this  authority 
for  its  decrees,  has  nevertheless  performed  the  same  act.  One 
who  rejects  as  uninspired  the  Canticle  of  Canticles,  and  if  we 
may  believe  a  recent  writer  in  the  Magnolia,  there  are  many 
biblical  scholars  in  this  country  who  do,  must  look  on  the  decla- 
ration of  the  Westminster  Confession,  that  that  book  is  inspired, 
as  at  least  an  equally  striking  display  of  intolerable  arrogance,  as 
the  declaration  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  that  the  books  you 
mention,  were  ever  preserved  in  the  church,  and  must  still  be 
held  as  divinely  inspired.  I  might  also  say  that  it  is  not  more 
arrogant  to  declare  that  a  contested  book  is  divinely  inspired, 
than  that  a  contested  doctrine  or  precept  is  contained  in  the 
Scripture.  And  yet  we  need  not  go  back  many  months  to  find 
your  Assembly  declaring  this  last,  and  enforcing  its  declaration 
under  penalty  of  suspension  from  the  ministry  and  exclusion 
from  your  sacrament.  I  press  this  view  farther  than  peihaps 
seems  necessary  ;  but  your  article,  like  most  articles  written 
against  us,  breathes  a  spirit,  which  I  will  not  qualify,  but  which 

16* 


354  APPENDIX. 

would  exclude  the  Catholic  church  from  that  right  Protestants 
boast  God  has  given  to  all  men, — to  believe  in  religious  matters, 
according  to  our  own  judgment,  and  to  declare  what  she  holds  true. 

With  these  remarks  on  the  performance  of  the  act,  let  us  pass 
on  to  the  decision  itself  and  its  truth.  I  have  taken  exception 
to  the  idea  of  the  decision  conveyed  by  your  words.  Let  the 
Fathers  speak  for  themselves. 

"  Sacrosancta  cecumenica  et  generalis  Tridentina  Synodus, 
in  Spiritu  Sancto  legitime  congregata,  praesidentibus  in  eaiisdem 
tribus  ApostolicsB  Sedis  legatis,  hoc  sibi  perpetuo  anto  oculos 
proponens,  ut,  sublatis  erroribus,  puritas  ipsa  evangelii  in  ecclesia 
conservetur ;  quod  promissum  ante  per  prophetas  in  Scripturis 
Sanctis,  Dominus  noster  Jesus  Christus  Dei  filius  proprio  ore 
primum  promulgavit ;  deinde  per  suos  apostolos  tanquam  fontem 
omnis  et  salutaris  veritatis  et  morum  disciplinae  omni  creaturae 
praedicari  jussit :  perspiciensque  banc  veritatem  et  disciplinam 
contineri  in  libris  scriptis,  et  sine  scripto  traditionibus,  quae  ip- 
sius  Christi  ore  ab  Apostolis  acceptae,  aut  ab  ipsis  Apostolis, 
Spiritu  sancto  dictante,  quasi  per  manus  traditae  ad  nos  usque 
pervenerunt :  orthodoxorum  Patrumexemplasecuta,  omnes  libros 
tam  veteris  quam  novi  Testamenti,  cum  utriusque  unus  Deus 
sit  auctor,  nee  non  traditiones  ipsas,tum  ad  fidem  tum  ad  mores 
pertinentes,  tanquam  ore  tenus  a  Christo,  vel  a  Spiritu  sancto 
dictatas,  et  continua  successione  in  Ecclesia  catholica  conserva- 
tas  pari  pietatis  affectu  ac  reverentia  suscipit  et  veneratur.  Sa- 
crorum  vero  librorum  indicem  huic  decreto  adscribendum  cen- 
suit;  ne  cui  dubitatiosuboriri  possit,  quinamsint,  qui  ab  ipsa  sy- 
nodo  suscipiuntur.  Sunt  vero  infra  scripti,  (here  follows  the  list 
containing  the  books  you  object  to.)  Si  quis  autem  libros  ipsos 
integros  cum  omnibus  suis  partibus,  prout  in  Ecclesia  catholica 
legi  consueverant,  et  in  veteri  vulgata  Latina  editione  habentur, 
pro  sacris  et  canonicis  non  susceperit,  et  traditiones  praedictas 
sciens  et  prudens  contempserit;   anathema  sit." 

"  The  holy  oecumenical  and  general  Council  of  Trent,  law- 
fully assembled  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  three  aforesaid  Legates 
of  the  Apostolic  See  presiding  therein  ;  having  this  always  in 
view,  that  errors  being  taken  away,  the  purity  of  that  gospel 
should  be  preserved  in   the  church,   which,  promised    by   the 


APPE^DIx.  355 

prophets  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  first  promulgated  with  his  own  mouth,  and  afterwards 
commanded  should  be  preached  by  his  apostles  to  every  creature 
as  the  source  of  every  saving  truth  and  moral  discipline;  and 
clearly  seeing  that  this  truth  and  discipline  is  contained  in  the 
written  books,  and  in  the  unwritten  traditions,  which,  received 
by  the  Apostles  from  the  mouth  of  Christ  himself,  or  from  the 
Apostles  themselves,  dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  them,  have 
come  down  even  to  us,  delivered  as  it  were  from  hand  to  hand  ; 
following  the  example  of  the  orthodox  Fathers,  receives  with 
due  piety  and  reverence,  and  venerates,  all  the  hooks,  as  well 
of  the  Old  as  of  the  New  Testament,  since  one  God  is  the  au- 
thor of  both,  and  also  those  traditions  appertaining  to  faith  and 
morals,  which  have  been  held  in  the  Catholic  church  in  con- 
tinued succession,  as  coming  from  the  mouth  of  Christ,  or 
dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  has  moreover  thought  proper  to 
annex  to  this  decree  a  catalogue  of  the  Sacred  Books,  lest  any 
doubt  might  arise,  which  are  the  books  received  by  this  Council. 
They  are  the  following  ijirre  follows  the  list,  containing  the 
books  to  which  entirely  or  in  part  you  object).  Now,  if  any  one 
does  not  receive  as  sacred  and  canonical  those  books,  entire 
with  all  their  parts,  as  they  have  been  usually  read  in  the  Catho- 
lic church,  and  are  found  in  the  old  Latin  vulgate  edition  ;  and 
shall  knowingly  and  industriously  contemn  the  aforesaid  tradi- 
tions, let  him  be  anathema."  ^essio  quarta  cclcbrata  die  viii. 
Mens   April,   MDXLVI. 

This  decree,  you  perceive.  Rev.  Sir,  treats  of  the  inspired 
Scriptures  and  the  unwritten  traditions.  Your  essay  takes  up 
the  first  topic:   1  leave  the  second,  then,  without  any  remark. 

From  this  document  it  appears  at  first  glance  that  the  Coun- 
cil desired  to  draw  up  for  the  use  of  the  faithful  a  canon  or 
catalogue  of  the  inspired  Books,  and  that  thejl  inserted  therein 
hose  works  which  they  were  convinced  had  ever  been  looked  up- 
on by  the  universal  church  as  sacred  and  inspired.  It  is  a  doc- 
trine of  our  church,  sustained  by  the  arguments  at  which  I  have 
•  hinted  above,  that  Almighty  God  has  promised  never  to  permit 
error,  under  such  circumstances,  to  be  taught  instead  of  truth. 
Hence  the  Council  looked  upon  that  decree  as  deci.sive,  and  as 


356  APPENDIX. 

such  it  has  been  and  is  received  by  the  Catholic  church  through- 
out the  world.  Were  any  Catholic  to  refuse,  he  would  be  sepa- 
rated from  her  communion.  She  would  no  longer  recognise 
in  him  a  sheep  of  her  own  true  fold :  before  the  tribunal  of  God, 
he  would  stand  or  fall,  accordincr  as  in  his  own  conscience  he 
was  really  more  or  less  guilty  or  innocent  of  a  violation  of  His 
supreme  commands.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  bor- 
rowed from  the  Scripture,  anathema  sit,  let  him  be  anathema, 
and  used  in  every  age  of  Christianity.  You  yourself,  Rev.  sir, 
have  gone  as  far  as  you  charge  the  Fathers  with  going,  when 
you  say,  that  if  the  books  in  question  are  uninspired,  those  who 
receive  them  "run  the  risk  of  eternal  damnation."  In  your 
essay  you  declare  that  they  are  uninspired.  The  application  is 
obvious. 

Ilallam,  a  Protestant  writer,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Liter- 
ature of  Europe,  has  the  following  passage.  "  No  general 
council  ever  contained  so  many  persons  of  eminent  learning  and 
ability  as  that  of  Trent  :  nor  is  there  ground  for  believing  that 
any  other  investigated  the  questions  before  it  with  so  much 
patience,  acuteness,  temper,  and  desire  of  truth."  1  might 
quote  from  Roscoe  and  other  Protestants,  who  were  somewhat 
au  fait  with  the  continental  Catholic  literature  of  that  period, 
similar,  if  not  stronger,  testimonies  in  their  favor.  Considering 
their^decree  concerning  the  Scriptures,  apart  from  the  religious 
value  with  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  church  invests  it, 
I  cannot  think  it  deserves  to  be  treated  with  such  unceremonious 
disrespect  as  your  essay  exhibits.  Hundreds  of  the  most  learned 
men  in  Europe,  after  patient  examination  and  a  thorough  inves- 
tigation of  all  the  evidence  they  could  find  on  the  subject, 
decide  unanimously  that  a  certain  fact  took  place  :  for,  on  their 
own  showing,  the  decree  is  based  on  such  a  decision.  You, 
Rev.  sir,  think  they  were  mistaken.  Still,  as  literary  opponents, 
you  should  feel  they  are  no  despicable  adversaries.  If  it  pleases 
you,  as  a  divine,  to  consider  them  as  a  religious  body,  you  see 
the  most  venerable,  learned,  and  zealous  pastors  of  a  church, 
numbering  150,000,000  in  the  fold,  assembling  together,  that 
by  mutual  advice,  after  due  consultation,  and  earnest,  persever- 
ing prayer,  they  may   be  enlightened   by  Him,  whose  ministers 


api'i:m)1x.  357 

they  hold  themselves  to  be,  so  as  faithfully  to  instruct  on  a  most 
important  point,  the  multitudes  that  look  to  them  for  guidance 
in  the  way  of  eternal  salvation.  If  I  could  believe  that,  notwith- 
standing, they  fell  into  error;  while  I  lamented  it,  I  would  still 
respect,  revere  them.  I  would  often  turn  to  that  assembly,  as  a 
scene  on  which  a  Christian  soul  should  love  to  dwell,  and  learn 
from  them  earnest  zeal  and  fervent  piety. 

The  question  between  us  is,  did  they  fall   into  error  or  not? 

You  remark  that  the  onus probandi  Vies  on  us,  and  that  the  pre- 
sumption is  against  the  inspiration  of  those  books  you  combat, 
until  satisfactory  evidence  be  brought  forward  to  prove  that 
point.  This,  Rev.  Sir,  is  true,  not  only  in  reference  to  those 
books,  but  to  all  others,  which  it  may  be  contended  are  inspired. 
Defect  of  such  proof  would  be  fatal  to  the  cause  g{  miy  book. 

Now  I  '  assert  and  shall  endeavor  to  prove,'  that  the  only  ar- 
guments which  establish  the  inspiration  of  those  books  which  you 
admit  are  inspired,  in  that  manner,  and  to  the  extent  which  com- 
mon sense  and  the  nature  of  Christianity  require  that  it  should 
be  proved,  will  also  establish  the  inspiraton  of  the  books  you  re- 
pudiate; and  that  if  these  are  to  be  rejected,  because  of  the  in- 
sufficiency of  those  arguments  in  their  support,  the  others  must 
be  at  least  generally  rejected  ;  the  conclusive  arguments,  at  least, 
for  the  generality  of  Christians,  being,  as  I  shall  show,  identi- 
cally the  same  in  both  cases. 

I  need  not  say  that  the  question,  what  writings  are  divinely 
inspired,  has  not  been  debated  only  within  this  and  the  last  two 
centuries.  There  has  ever  been  great  difference  on  this  head 
among  those  who  professed  to  hold  a  revelation  from  Almighty 
God.  The  Sadducees  and  the  Samaritans  rejected  all  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  except  those  of  Moses.  The  Nazarenes, 
on  the  other  hand,  rejected  the  Pentateuch.  The  Simonians,  the 
Basilidians,  the  Marcionists,  with  the  Manicheans,  the  Patricians, 
the  Severians,  the  Albigenses,  and  some  others,  rejected  the  en- 
tire Old  Testament.  Many  others  have  rejected  various  books. 
Nor  has  the  New  Testament  escaped  a  similar  fate.  The  four 
gospels  were  rejected  by  the  Manicheans  ;  each  book  had  its 
impugners,  down  to  the  Apocalypse  or  book  of  Revelations, 
which  you  well  know  was  rejected  by  many,  who  were,  and  are 


358  APPENDIX. 

Still,  accounted  to  have  been  orthodox.  The  Rationalists  of  Ger- 
many would  smile  with  contempt  and  pity  on  the  delusion,  which 
in  the  effulgence  of  their  philosophical  Christianity  would  believe 
in  any  supernatural  aid  given  to  the  scriptural  writers.  The 
deist  among  ourselves  denies  altogether  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible.  Nay,  according  to  the  principles  you  lay  down,  there  is 
a  time  when  every  Protestant  must  doubt  it.  You  are  not,  you 
say,  at  *  liberty  to  believe,'  the  books  you  attack,  to  be  inspired, 
'until  clear  and  decided  proofs  of  the  fact  are  brought  forward.' 
Neither  on  the  same  ground  is  any  Protestant  *  at  liberty  to  be- 
lieve any  documents  to  be  inspired,'  but  is  solemnly  bound  to 
*  treat  them  as  he  treats  all  other  writings,  merely  as  human  pro- 
ductions, until  clear  and  cogent  arguments  for  their  divine  origin 
are  submitted  to  his  understanding.'  I  think  it  important  that 
this  high  'vantage  ground,'  to  use  your  own  expression  in  the 
argument  on  this  subject, '  should  be  fully  apprehended;'  for  in 
order  to  meet  your  preamble  more  directly,  I  will  base  on  it  the 
following  remarks,  which  I  offer  to  your  serious  consideration 
and  that  of  those  whose  sense  of  equity  or  whose  curiosity  may 
lead  them  to  examine  what  a  Catholic  can  say  on  the  subject. 

We  cannot  be  called  on  to  believe  any  proposition  not  sus- 
tained by  adequate  proof.  When  Almighty  God  deigned  to 
inspire  the  works  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  he  intended 
they  should  be  held  and  believed  to  be  inspired.  Therefore  there 
does  exist  some  adequate  proof  of  their  inspiration.  The  nature 
and  scheme  of  Christianity  requires  that  not  one  only  in  a  thou- 
sand, but  all  those  to  whom  Christianity  is  properly  announced, 
of  whatsoever  age  or  condition  they  be,  should  believe  it.  There- 
fore, that  proof  of  inspiration  is  adapted  to  all  those  ages  and  con- 
ditions, must  be  one  which  will  strike  the  understanding  of  the 
wandering  Indian  and  the  unlettered  negro  slave,  as  clearly  and 
as  cogently  as  that  of  the  enlightened  Professor. 

Now,  Rev.  Sir,  there  may  be  many  ways  of  seeking  to 
ascertain  the  fact  of  the  inspiration  of  any  writer  or  writers. 
They  may,  however,  be  all  reduced  to  the  four  following 
methods : — 

1.  Is  every  man,  no  matter  what  be  his  condition,  to  investi- 
gate by  his  own  labor  and  research,  and  duly  examine  the  argu- 


APPENDIX.  ^9 

ments  that  have  been  or  can  be  alleged  for  and  against  the  sev- 
eral books,  which  it  is  asserted  are  inspired;  and  on  the  strength 
of  that  examination  to  decide  for  himself  with  absolute  certainty 
what  books  are  and  what  are  not  inspired  ? 

2.  Is  every  individual  to  receive  books  as  inspired,  or  to  re- 
ject them  as  uninspired,  according  to  the  decision  of  persons  he 
esteems  duly  qualified  by  erudition  and  sound  judgment  to  deter- 
mine that  question  accurately? 

3.  Must  we  learn  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  from  some 
individual,  whom  God  commissioned  to  announce  this  fact  to  the 
world  ? 

4.  Must  he  learn  it  from  a  body  of  individuals,  to  whom  in  their 
collective  capacity,  God  has  given  authority  to  make  an  unerring 
decision  on  this  subject? 

1  might  perhaps  add  a  fifth  method;  that  each  one  be  in- 
formed what  books  are  divinely  inspired  by  his  private  spirit. 
But  I  omit  it  as,  were  it  true,  it  would  be  superfluous,  if  not  a 
criminal  intrusion  on  the  province  God  would  have  reserved  to 
himself,  to  attempt  to  prove  or  disapprove,  when  our  duty  would 
be  simply  to  await  in  patience  this  revelation  to  every  particular 
individual.  You  are  not  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
and  your  essay  is  not  an  expose  of  the  teaching  of  your  private 
spirit,  but  an  effort  to  appeal  to  argument. 

To  some  one  of  those  four  methods,  every  plan  of  proving 
the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  can  be  reduced.  You  for  your- 
self use  the  first ;  appealing  to  the  testimonies  of  antiquity  in 
support  of  your  proposition,  and  to  arguments  from  seeming  in- 
ternal imperfections.  One  who  would  rest  satisfied  with  your 
dissertation,  believing  that  your  erudition  and  judgment  must 
lead  you  to  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with  those  testimonies  and 
to  the  proper  decision  thereon,  and  who  would  consequently 
seek  nothing  more,  but  unhesitatingly  embrace  your  conclusion, 
would  be  using  the  second.  The  third  is  plain  of  itself  The 
fourth,  that  sustained  by  Catholics,  **  you  despise." 

Rev.  Sir,  you  admit  that  there  do  exist  divinely  inspired  writ- 
ings, and  that  Almighty  God  requires  individuals  of  every  na- 
tion, clime,  and  condition  to  receive  them  as  inspired.  Those 
individuals  are  "solemnly  bound"  to  reject  that  inspiration,  to 


3(50  APPENDIX. 

"  treat  those  works  as  they  treat  all  other  writings,  merely  as 
human  productions, — "  of  no  more  authority  than  Seneca's  Let- 
ters or  Tully's  Offices" — (if  they  ever  heard  of  them) — "until 
clear  and  cogent  arguments  for  their  divine  origin  are  submitted 
to  their  understandings" — "  until  they  are  proved  to  be  inspired." 
You  are  forced,  therefore,  to  allow  that  God  has  provided  such 
proof,  suited  to  the  capacity  of  all  those  individuals  ;  and  which, 
when  within  their  reach,  He  requires  them  to  use.  That  proof  must 
be  found  in  the  use  of  some  one  of  the  four  above-mentioned  methods. 

Let  us  examine  them  severally,  and  see  which  is  in  truth 
suited  to  the  means  and  intelligence  of  men  of  every  condition. 

I  Is  every  man,  no  matter  what  be  his  condition  and  means, 
capable  of  investigating  by  his  own  labor  and  research,  and  duly 
examining  the  arguments,  that  have  been  or  can  be  alleged  for 
and  against  the  several  books  which  it  is  asserted  are  inspired  ; 
and  on  the  strength  of  that  examination,  of  deciding  for  himself, 
with  absolute  certainty  and  unerring  accuracy,  what  books  are, 
and  what  are  not  inspired?  This  question,  methinks,  need  not 
be  asked  a  second  time. 

The  arguments  in  this  course  would  be  of  two  classes,  ex- 
ternal and  internal  ;  either  or  both  of  which  would  form  matter 
for  investigation.  He  might  seek,  as  you  have  endeavored  to 
do,  whether  there  exists  a  sufficient  mass  of  testimony  to  estab- 
lish the  fact  or  facts,  that  God  did  at  certain  times,  and  on  cer- 
tain occasions,  exercise  over  particular  writers  the  supernatural 
influence  of  inspiration ;  or,  from  a  consideration  of  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  Scriptures,  he  might  conclude  that  they  were  above 
the  power  of  unaided  men,  and  therefore  must  be  of  divine 
origin.  To  perform  the  first  properly,  he  must  be  deeply  versed 
in  the  Latin,  the  Greek,  and  the  Hebrew,  perhaps  too,  in  several 
modern  lancruacres:  must  have  at  his  command  a  more  extensive 
library  than,  I  believe,  Charleston  can  boast  of;  must  spend 
consequently  many  long  years  of  study  in  acquiring  those  lan- 
guages and  obtaining  authors,  in  searching  out  the  thousand 
and  one  testimonies  scattered  through  a  hundred  musty  tomes, 
and  in  acquiring  that  thorough  knowledge  of  times,  of  men,  of 
writings,  which  will  enable  him  to  judge  of  the  credibility  of 
those  witnesses — must  finally  possess  an  unrivalled,  almost  super- 


APPKNDIX.  3()l 

iiuural  accuracy  of  judu^nieiit,  to  reconcile  this  mass  of  condict- 
ing  statements,  and  distin^uishiiitr  wliicli  are  worthy  nnd  whicli 
iinuoriliy  of  credit — to  conclude  c(>nlidently  and  evidently  in 
favor  of  or  against  the  inspiration  of  the  books  examined.  The 
second  requires  a  thorough  acquaintance  wilii  the  Scriptures  in 
the  original  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Chaldean,  and  in  the  ancient 
versions  in  Samaritan,  Copht,  Arabic,  Syriac,  Greek,  and  Latin, 
and  with  the  ancient  manuscripts  ;  and  the  ability  to  apply  to  all 
this  the  subtle  rules  of  retined  criticism,  in  order  to  determine, 
in  the  first  place,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  the  exact  lan- 
guage and  meaning  of  the  sacred  writers;  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  abilities  and  acquirements  of  each  writer  and  the  state  of 
science,  and  already  revealed  religion  in  his  country  and  age,  in 
order  to  see  to  what  extent  of  perfection  his  own  powers  with 
such  aids  could  naturally  carry  him  ;  the  faculty  also  of  duly 
appreciating  the  beauties  of  the  sacred  writings,  and  that  know- 
ledge of  chemistry,  of  natural  history,  of  geology,  of  the  history 
of  nations,  and  of  almost  every  science,  which  may  enable  him 
fully  and  satisfactorily  to  refute  all  the  objections  brought  from 
these  different  sources  against  the  intrinsic  truth,  and  conse- 
quently internal  evidence,  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Need  I  say,  it  is  all  important  he  should  be  able  to  pos- 
sess and  peruse  the  books  on  whose  inspiration  he  is  thus  to 
decide  ? 

Whether  any  investigation  in  cither  or  botli  classes,  carried 
on  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  will  unerringly 
prove  the  inspiration  of  any  books  of  the  Scri|)ture,  1  leave  to  be 
mooted  by  those  who  clioose  to  undertake  the  task.  The  Editors 
of  the  Miscellany  have  lately  published  several  articles  on  the 
subject,  under  the  he^d,  Protestant  evidence  of  the  inspiration  of 
Scripture.  For  my  immediate  purpose,  it  is  enough  to  ask  you 
and  my  readers  to  reflect  for  one  moment  on  the  past  and  present 
condition  of  the  vast  majority  of  those  millions  who  call  them- 
selves Christians;  whom  God  requires  to  receive  the  Scriptures, 
and  who  consequently  have  "  clear  and  cogent  arguments  for 
their  Divine  origin."  Is  it  not  notorious,  the  great,  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  Christians  have  ever  been  and  must  con- 
tinue incapacitated   by  their  position  in  the  world,  their  want  of 


:it)2  APPENDIX. 

time,  of  learning,  of  means,  from  even  attempting  Such  an  inves- 
tic^ation  ?  Was  it  not,  for  ages  before  the  discovery  of  the  art  of 
printing,  morally  impossible,  on  account  of  the  labor  and  tedioiis- 
ness  of  copying  such  volumes  with  the  pen,  their  consequent 
scarcity,  and  the  enormous  price  at  which  alone  they  could  be 
procured,  for  most  individuals  to  obtain  even  copies  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  themselves,  much  more  of  those  works  necessary  for 
such  an  examination  1  Not  to  leave  our  own  state,  are  not  more 
than  one-half  of  her  population  debarred  by  law  from  learning  to 
read?  Of  the  550,000  souls  in  South  Carolina,  think  you  there 
are  550  or  even  50,  who  have  time,  the  means,  the  ability,  the 
opportunity  of  devoting  themselves  to  this  laborious  task  ? 

If  every  individual  is  bound  to  reject  the  inspiration  of  a 
book,  until  it  is  clearly  and  evidently  proved  to  his  mind  to  be 
inspired,  and  if  such  proof  can  only  be  obtained  through  that 
personal  examination,  then  must  the  negro  and  the  Indian,  and 
the  poor  and  the  unlettered,  and  the  daily  laborer  toiling  from 
sun-rise  to  sun-set  for  his  bread,  then  must  the  overw  helming 
MAJORITY  of  Christians  reject  the  Scriptures  ;  then  were  ail  those, 
who,  deprived  of  worldly  learning,  looked  in  their  simplicity  to 
God  for  saving  wisdom,  and  fondly  believed  they  possessed  it  in 
those  sacred  oracles  of  truth — I  tremble  to  follow  the  awful  train 
of  thought.  Rev.  Sir,  the  Jirst  cannot  be  the  method  appointed  by 
Almighty  God,  whereby  all  should  learn  with  unerring  accuracy 
the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.     Let  us  take  up  the  second. 

II.  Is  every  individual  to  receit^e  books  as  inspired,  or  to  re- 
ject them  as  uninspired,  according  to  the  decision  of  persons  he 
esteems  sufficiently  qualified  by  erudition  and  sound  judgment 
to  determine  that  question  accurately  ?  I  apprehend  a  candid 
mind  can  easily  answer  this  question. 

Is  such  a  course  adapted  to  «// Christians  ?  Would  it  lead 
them  with  unerring  accuracy  to  the  truth  ?  If  it  be  the  means 
appointed  by  Almighty  God,  both  questions  must  be  answered  in 
the  affirmative.  If  common  sense  and  experience  show  that  either 
or  both  must  be  answered  negatively,  it  is  not. 

Those  who  possess  not  learning  themselves,  can  seldom  or 
never  form  a  proper  estimate  of  the  learning  and  critical  judg- 
ment of  a  truly  erudite  person  whom  perhaps  they  have  scarcely 


APPENDIX.  3(33 

looked  on.  Whole  communities  may  be  deceived  on  this  point. 
Need  I  cite  the  case  of  Voltaire,  once  extolled  by  France  and  the 
soi-disant  Philosophers  of  Europe  as  a  very  Briarcus  of  Erudi- 
tion, and  now  that  in  France  Religion  and  Science  happily  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  execrations  o^  Vinfame  are  no  longer  passj)orts 
to  celebrity,  justly  derided  as  a  puny  puffed-up  smatterer  ?  The 
individual  thus  seeking  the  light  of  others,  (besides  surrenderincr 
his  Protestant  privilege  of  judging  for  himself,  and  pinning  his 
faith  to  their  sleeves,)  is  in  most  cases  unable  to  judge  with  cer- 
tainty and  accuracy  on  the  sufficiency  of  the  qualifications  of 
those  learned  persons,  frequently  of  that  single  individual,  within 
his  limited  circle  of  knowledge.  Of  the  learned  in  other  lands, 
and  of  their  decisions,  he  knows  nothing.  Even  did  he,  you  are 
aware  every  variety  of  decisions  would  be  offered  him.  I  cannot 
be  brought  to  believe,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  not  ask  me  to  be- 
lieve, that  all  erudition  and  sound  judgment  is  confined  to  Ger- 
many, Holland,  Great  Britain,  the  United  States,  Denmark,  and 
Sweden,  and  is  there  parcelled  out  among  those  who  may  chance 
to  agree  with  you  in  your  list  of  inspired  books.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve, for  example,  that  our  lamented  Bishop,  for  whom  our  tears 
yet  flow,  was  either  unsound  in  judgment  or  deficient  in  erudition. 
Not  to  speak  of  esteemed  friends,  who,  if  I  err  not,  are  yet  un- 
willing to  admit  any  inspired  work,  I  know  many  Catholics  in 
the  United  States,  whose  talents  and  years  of  study  render  them, 
as  they  rendered  him,  the  ornaments  of  the  community  in  which 
they  move.  I  believe  that  "  La  belle  France"  and  sunny  Italy 
produce  many  champions  who  press  forward  to  the  van  in  the 
cause  of  science.  I  know  it  is  the  custom  of  some  to  rail  against 
those  countries  as  buried  in  ignorance  and  darkness,  at  least  in 
matters  of  religion.  But  such  language  ever  recalls  forcibly  to 
my  mind  the  fable  of  the  ant,  who,  till  perchance  she  wandered 
forth  from  her  hill,  thought  nothing  could  be  perfect  on  earth 
but  what  met  her  limited  vision  within  a  {c\x  yards  of  her  home. 
Were  you.  Rev.  Sir,  to  devote  a  leisure  hour  or  so  to  examining 
the  biography  of  those  prelates  who  assisted  at  the  Council  of 
Trent,  and  whose  authority  and  decisions  you  so  heartily  "  des- 
pise," you  would  find  them  eminent  and  worthy  of  respect  for 
their  sincere  piety  and  vast  erudition,  albeit  their  decision  on  the 
books  of  Tobit,  Judith,  &-c.,  was  different  from  vours. 


364  APPENDIX. 

If  in  receiving  books  as  inspired,  or  not,  the  ignorant  and 
unlearned  are,  according  to  the  will  of  God,  to  abide  by  the  de- 
cisions of  those  learned  individuals  to  whom  they  have  access,  or 
whom  in  their  simplicity  they  deem  qualified  to  act  as  their 
guides,  then  must  we  be  content  to  say  that  God  requires  some 
to  receive  as  inspired,  and  others  to  reject  as  uninspired,  the 
same  books.  The  second  course  seems  impracticable.  Were 
it  not,  it  would  lead  to  contradictory  conclusions  ;  and  therefore, 
to  error.  Such  cannot  be  the  means  appointed  by  Divine  wis- 
dom, whereby  all  the  faithful  shall  truly  learn  what  books  of  the 
Scripture  are  really  inspired.     Pass  we  on  to  the  third. 

III.  Did  God  ordain  that  all  Christians  should  learn  what 
Scriptures  were  divinely  inspired,  from  some  individual,  whom 
He  commissioned  to  announce  this  truth  to  the  world  1  This  is 
the  next  inquiry  which  awaits  us.  If  He  did,  then  will  the  proofs 
of  that  commission,  and  the  declaration  so  made,  be  such  as  the 
mind  of  every  Christian  of  whatsoever  condition  can  seize. 

Our  Divine  Saviour,  taking  him  simply  in  his  historical 
character,  proved  his  commission  from  Heaven  by  miracles. 
But  He  bft  no  canon  or  catalogue  of  inspired  works.  The 
Apostles,  too,  proved  their  Divine  commission.  There  might  be 
some  discussion  respecting  the  works  attributed  to  them  ;  but 
neither  did  they  leave  a  canon  in  their  writings.  But  did  not 
the  Saviour  or  the  Apostles  leave  such  a  canon,  though  unre- 
corded, to  their  followers,  to  be  by  them  transmitted  to  future 
generations,  and  which  all  are  bound  to  receive?  This  suppo- 
sition, besides  overturning  another  fundamental  axiom  of  Protes- 
tants, that  all  things  necessary  to  be  believed  are  recorded  in  the 
Scriptures,  turns  over  the  question  to  method  the  first,  which  I 
have  already  disposed  of. 

After  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  we  know  of  no  one  who 
claimed  and  proved  an  extraordinary  commission  from  God  to 
establish  a  canon  of  Scripture. 

Before  the  coming  of  Christ,  Esdras  is  said  to  have  established 
a  canon  for  the  use  of  the  Jewish  naiion.  It  has  been  disputed 
whether  he  did  so  or  not  ;  whether  he  did  so  by  his  own  author- 
ity, or  by  the  authority  of  God;  whether  alone,  or  in  conjunction 
with,  and  as  member  of,  the  Sanhedrim.     It  has  been  asserted, 


1 


APPENDIX.  3()5 

too,  that  in  that  catalogue  were  originally  contained  books,  which 
in  the  vicissitudes  of  that  nation,  perished  in  the  Hebrew,  and 
are  consequently  no  longer  in  the  Jewish  canon,  which  consists 
only  of  books  preserved  in  that  language.  1  need  not  trouble  you 
with  my  opinions  on  those  different  points.  More  veteran  schol- 
ars than  I,  have  found  some  of  them  insoluble  enigmas.  I  ap- 
prehend a  certain  and  accurate  answer  to  them  all  would,  at 
least,  be  far  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  majority  of  Christians, 
and  yet  this  much  would  be  indispensably  necessary,  if  they  are 
to  have  any  Divine  authority  even  for  the  Jewish  canon.  At  all 
events,  that  decision  of  Esdras  would  not  bear  on  the  inspiration 
of  books  then  unwritten,  as  were  all  the  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, so  important  to  Christians,  and  nearly  all  the  works,  the 
inspiration  of  which  your  essay  controverts. 

The  third  method,  then,  cannot  be  admitted;  because  no 
such  clear  unequivocal  testimony  of  the  entire  number  of  inspired 
books,  proceeding  from  an  individual,  who  is  evidently  and  un- 
doubtedly commissioned  of  God,  exists;  and  because  in  the  case 
of  Esdras,  the  most  we  can  say  is,  that  the  substance  of  the  de- 
claration is  tinged  with  doubt,  while  the  fact  that  he  made  it, 
and  his  authority  for  doing  so,  cannot  be  ascertained  by  the  vast 
majority  of  Christians. 

IV.  The  fourth  method  alone  now  remains,  namely,  that  God 
has  ordained  that  each  Christian  shall  learn  what  books  are  in- 
spired, from  a  body  of  individuals,  to  whom  in  their  collective 
capacity  He  has  given  authority  to  make  an  unerring  decision  on 
that  point;  and  we  find  ourselves  reduced  to  the  alternative  of 
either  admitting  this,  or  of  saying,  that  while  God  rrfpiirrs  all  to 
believe  the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture,  and  binds  them  to  reject 
it  unless  it  be  clearly  proved.  He  has  left  them  without  any  such 
proof 

Would  such  a  method,  if  rstahlish/^y  be  adapted  to  all  Chris- 
tians?    Would  it  lead  them  to  truth  1 

One  of  such  a  body  presenting  himself  to  instruct  a  Christian 
or  an  infidel,  would  first  inform  him  that,  a  number  of  years  ago, 
a  person,  known  by  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  appeared  in  Jtidea, 
and  established  a  new  religion.  SulHcient  motives  of  credibility 
can  easily  be  brought   forward  to   induce   tho  novice  to  believe 


^'66  APPENDIX. 

this.  He  proceeds  to  state  that  Christ  proved  His  heavenly  com- 
mission to  do  so,  by  frequent,  public,  and  manifest  miracles.  It 
will  not  require  much  to  establish  in  those  works  certain  striking 
characteristics  of  themselves,  clearly  indicative  of  a  miraculous 
nature.  Hence  common  sense  is  forced  to  conclude  that  the 
religion  established  by  Christ  was  divine,  springing  from  God 
and  binding  on  man.  So  far  we  find  nothing  above  or  con- 
trary to  the  means  and  understanding  even  of  an  Indian  or 
a  negro.  Our  instructor  then  states  that  Christ,  in  order  to  se- 
cure the  extension  of  his  religion  to  every  people,  and  its  perpet- 
uation to  the  end  of  time,  selected  from  among  his  followers  cer- 
tain persons,  who,  with  their  successors,  were,  in  his  name,  and 
by  the  same  authority  he  possessed,  to  go  forth  and  teach  all 
nations  all  that  he  had  himself  taught  in  Judea.*  Such  a  dele- 
gation is  by  means  nnnatural  or  strange,  and  there  could  be  found 
no  novice,  however  rude  and  uncultivated,  whose  mind  could  not 
grasp  it,  and  who  would  not  be  led  to  believe  it  on  sufficiently 
credible  testimony.  The  next  lesson  will  be  that  the  Saviour  as- 
sured them  that  they  would  be  opposed,  that  others  would  rise  up  to 
teach  errors,  whom  he  sent  not,  and  that  some  of  their  own  num- 
ber would  fall  away ;  but  thai  God  would  recall  to  their  minds 
all  things  he  had  taught  them,t  that  He  would  send  them 
the  Spirit  of  Truth,  who  should  abide  with  them  forever, :|;  and 
should  teach  them  all  truth, §  that  He  himself  would  be  with 
them  while  fulfilling  that  commission,  all  days,  even  to  the  con- 
summation of  the  world, II  and  that  the  gates  of  hell,  the  fiercest 
conflicts  of  enemies,  should  never  prevail  against  that  churchlj 
which  he  sent  them  to  found  and  ever  to  instruct.  For  stronger 
and  more  explicit  evidence  of  this,  he  might,  if  necessary  and 
convenient,  recur  to  certain  histories  written  by  persons  who 
lived  at  the  same  time  with  the  Saviour,  and  were  for  years  in 
daily  and  intimate  intercourse  with  him,  who  could  not  mistake 
such  simple  points,  and  the  accuracy  of  whose  reports  is  univer- 
sally acknowledged  and  can  easily  be  substantiated. 

"  All   this,"   replies   the  novice,   "  my    own   common   sense 

*  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  20.  t  .Tohn  xiv.  26.  X  .Tohn  xiv.  16,  17. 

§  John  xiv.  26  :  xvi.  1.3.  |!   Matt,  xxviii.  20.        If  Matt.  xvi.  18. 


APPENDIX.  ;J6T 

would  lead  me  to  expect.  The  persecutions  and  errors  you  refer 
to,  are  but  the  natural  workings  of  the  passions  of  men,  such  as 
experience  shows  them  in  cvery-day  life.  It  would  be  straiifre, 
indeed,  that  while  men  change  and  contradict  every  thing  else, 
they  should  not  seek  to  change  and  contradict  God's  doctrines 
and  precepts  too.  If  He  willed  that  the  religion  of  Christ  ahould 
endure  always,  that  is,  that  the  doctrines  He  revealed  should  be 
ever  preached  and  believed,  the  precepts  He  gave  ever  announced 
and  obeyed,  it  was  necessary  to  make  some  adequate  provision 
against  this  error  and  change-seeking  tendency  of  man.  If  those 
doctrines  and  precepts  are  to  be  learned  from  persons  he  ap- 
pointed to  teach  in  his  name  and  by  his  authority,  as  delegates 
whom,  in  virtue  of  the  power  given  him,  He  sent  as  He  was  sent 
by  the  Father,  that  provision  must  evidently  and  necessarily  be 
directed  to  preserve  the  purity  of  their  teaching,  to  preserve  that 
body  of  teachers,  by  the  power  of  God,  from  error,  and  to  make 
them,  in  fact,  '  teach  all  things  whatsoever  he  had  taught  them.' 
Unaided  reason  almost  assures  me,  this  is  the  course  the  Saviour 
would  adopt.  The  evidence  you  lay  before  me  is  satisfactory 
and  worthy  of  credit.     I  assent." 

The  missionary  would  then  inform  his  pupil,  that  the  body 
of  teachers,  thus  guaranteed  to  teach  all  truth,  '  forever,'  '  to  all 
nations,'  and  *  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation  of  the  world,' 
and  consequently  ever  to  exist  and  to  teach,  does  in  fact  exist, 
claiming  and  exercising  that  power;  that  at  the  present  day  it 
consists  of  such  individuals,  of  whom  he  is  a  commissioned  teach- 
er. If  asked,  he  would  probably  be  able  to  point  out  the  prede- 
cessors of  those  persons  in  the  last,  and  every  preceding  age; 
for  a  line  of  succession  would  have  come  down  from  the  days  of 
the  Apostles,  claiming  and  exercising  that  authority.  He  luigi^^ 
state  that  175,000,000  of  every  nation,  from  New  ZetiUmii  to 
China,  from  Van  Diemen's  land  to  the  Canadian  lu'i'-'ns,  from 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Siberia,  admit  and  gul>K^-t  themselves 
to  this  authority  ;  that  this  immense  multitude  is  owing  to  no 
sudden  increase,  but  that  millions  on  nu/iions  in  every  age  have 
done  the  same.  The  novice  wiiJ:ht  inquire,  whether  the 
predictions  concerning  persecutions  and  error  had  yet  been  ful- 
filled.     In  answer,  the  past  and  present   persecutions  mii^'ht  be 


368  APPENDIX. 

laid  before  him,  and  the  longj  list  of  those  who  in  various  aaes 
opposed  the  teaching  of  that  body  by  every  imaginable  shade  of 
error,  but  with  all  their  efforts  could  never  overturn  or  suppress 
it. 

"Truly/'  exclaims  the  pupil,  "  the  gates  of  hell  shall  never 
prevail  against  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  existence  of  that  body, 
its  history,  its  claims  recognized  by  such  multitudes,  would  of 
themselves,  had  I  no  other  motive  for  believing,  convince  me  of 
all  the  facts  I  have  just  admitted.  Were  they  not  true,  this  claim 
would  be  unfounded,  this  body,  subject  to  the  fate  of  all  human 
bodies,  would  have  long  since  perished.  I  see  whatever  Christ 
taught  must  be  true.  I  recognize  you  as  his  commissioned 
teacher.  I  believe  him  for  his  miracles  ;  I  believe  you  for  his 
authority.  What  are  his  doctrines,  that  I  may  receive  them  ? 
His  precepts,  that  I  may  obey  them?" 

In  all  this  there  is  nothing  opposed  to  the  nature  or  the  pow- 
ers of  any  man,  or  to  the  nature  of  religion.  The  facts  to  which 
assent  is  asked,  are  as  simple,  and  may  be  readily  made  as  clear 
and  as  certain,  as  that  there  lived  such  a  Roman  as  Julius  Caesar, 
that  he  warred  in  Gaul,  afterwards  turned  his  arms  against  his 
country,  overcame  Pompey,  and  finally  met  his  death  from  assas- 
sination. An  appeal  is  made  to  that  principle  implanted  in  the 
human  mind  by  its  Creator,  and  among  the  earliest  to  be  devel- 
oped, confiding  reliance  on  the  statements  of  others,  while  he 
guarantees  that  through  his  Almighty  Providence,  truth  shall  be 
stated.  An  infant  would  believe  by  force  of  that  nature  which 
God  has  given  it,  all  I  have  proposed  and  the  doctrines  delivered 
in  consequence,  long  before  it  would  dream  of  asking  evidence 
for  authority  to  teach  ;  and  when  reason  is  sufficiently  developed 
to  receive  motives  of  credibility,  they  are  already  at  hand.  We 
should  ever  bear  in  mind,  too,  that  if  this  be  the  method  adopted 
by  Almighty  God,  if  in  reality,  as  the  hypothesis  requires,  he 
speaks  to  that  individual  through  this  teacher,  his  divine  grace 
will  influence  the  mind  of  the  novice  to  yield  a  more  ready  and 
firm  assent  than  the  tendency  of  our  nature  and  the  unaided  mo- 
tives of  human  authority  would  produce.  In  this  system,  there 
is  no  room  for  that  awful,  but  necessary,  inevitable  consequence 
ofthe  axioms  of  Protestants,  and  of  your  own  principles,  that  in 


APPENDIX.  3(59 

the  life  of  every  individual,  there  should  be  a  dark  void  of  infidel- 
ity and  unbelief;  from  the  time  wh«H|^  having  attained  the  use  of 
reason,  he  is  able,  and  most  solemnly  bound  before  his  Maker,  to 
judge  for  himself,  until  the  time  when  clear  and  cogent  arfru- 
ments  for  the  inspiration  of,  at  least,  some  one  of  the  scriptural 
books  have  been  laid  before  his  mind.  During  that  interval,  be  it 
long  or  short,  an  hour,  a  day,  a  month,  a  year,  entire  lustres,  or 
a  whole  life,  their  inspiration  is  unproved  to  his  mind, '  clear  and 
cogent  arguments  for  their  divine  origin  are  not  yet  submitted  to 
his  understanding,'  and  hence  he  is  'solemnly  bound'  to  'treat 
them,  as  he  treats  all  other  writings,  merely  as  human  produc- 
tions,' '  having  no  more  authori  ty  than  Seneca's  Letters,  or  Tully's 
Offices.'  In  this  interval  he  is  without  an  inspired  Bible,  and  con.se- 
quently  cannot  believe  the  truths  of  Divine  Revelation,  which,  on 
the  broad  ground  of  Protestantism,  are  to  be  learned  from  the 
Scriptures  alone  as  the  inspired  word  of  God  ;  in  one  word,  during 
that  period,  he  is  '  solemnly  bound '  (shall  I  say,  unless  '  he  runs 
the  risk  of  everlasting  damnation?')  to  live  a  perfect  Infidel!  I 
know  that  this  statement  will  startle,  many  of  my  readers — that 
you  will  disavow  it.  I  do  not  charge  Protestants  with  holding 
the  absurdity  ;  for  none,  as  far  as  I  know,  have  avowed  it  tulidcm 
vprbis.  I  see,  however,  a  partial  admission  in  the  practice  of 
many  Protestants  to  let  their  children  grow  up  without  much  reli- 
crious  instruction,  because  in  future  years  they  have  to  examine 
and  judge  for  themselves.  Still  this  conclusion,  however  absurd 
and  awful,  (as  you  have  not  advanced  it,  I  may  without  infring- 
ing the  rules  of  courtesy,  add)  however  blasphemous,  is  the  ne- 
cessary, unavoidable  consequence  of  your  premises.  Such  an  in- 
ference cannot  follow  from  tuutii. 

This  fourth  method  is  not  repugnant  to  the  nature  of  rdi- 
aion  :  for  all  true  religion  is  based  on  submission  of  tli<-  under- 
standing and  the  will  to  God,  when  He  speaks  to  w*-'  himsell ;  to 
his  authorized  dele^rates,  when  tiirough  them  Uo  «ieigns  to  leach. 
Had  He  appointed  it,  that  body  of  individuals  so  commissioned, 
would  evidently  teach  truth. 

The  fourth  method  alone  is  tln-refore  both  practicable  in  the 
ordinary  condition  of  the  Christian  world,  and  etiicirnt. 

Does   there  exist  a  bo<Jy  of  men  clothed  with   thi.^  nuthority 


370  APPENDIX. 

guaranteed  by  such  a  divine  promise  from  error  ?  Has  it  made 
a  declaration  setting  forth,  in  pursuance  of  that  authority,  what 
works  are  truly  inspired  ? 

You,  Rev.  Sir,  are  forced  to  the  alternative  of  either  an- 
swerincr  both  questions  in  the  affirmative,  or  of  saying  that  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  Christians  are  "  solemnly  bound"  to 
reject  the  Scriptures  ;  and  if  they  jiave  admitted  them,  it  was  in 
violation  of  the  will  of  God,  and  of  their  solemn  duty.  From 
this  dilemma  there  is  no  escape. 

Were  I  not  unwilling  to  take  too  wide  a  range,  I  might  here 
develope  those  arguments  on  the  subject  which  I  referred  to  in  the 
beginning  of  this  letter.  Those  who  are  desirous  of  investiga- 
ting this  question  of  vital  importance  to  every  sincere  Christian, 
I  refer  to  Wiseman' s  Lectures,  an  English  work,  and  one  easily 
obtained.  I  trust  that  I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  such  a 
tribunal,  at  least  for  proving  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures, 
does,  and  must  exist,  unless  we  presume  to  tax  the  infinite  wisdom 
of  God  with  absurdity  and  contradiction. 

Which  then  is  that  body?  The  Pastors  of  the  Catholic 
church  claim  to  compose  it.  No  other  body  claims  that  commis- 
s.ion.  Leaving  aside  an  appeal  to  the  historical  evidence  of  con- 
tinued succession  from  the  Apostles,  and  other  arguments  bear- 
ing on  the  subject,  common  sense  tells  us,  that  if  God  has  in- 
vested any  body  of  individuals  with  such  authority,  that  body 
cannot  either  be  ignorant  of  its  powers,  nor  disclaim  them.  The 
Catholic  church,  then,  is  that  body.  In  the  decree  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent,  the  Christian  world  has  its  authorized  declaration. 

But  why  delay  for  fifteen  centuries  and  a  half  this  necessary, 
all  important  proof?  Why  leave  the  world  for  such  a  length  of 
time  without  this  evidence  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture  ? 
I  deny  that  the  delay  took  place.  In  order  that  the  sentiments 
of  a  community  be  known  by  those  who  move  within  its  bosom, 
or  have  intercourse  with  its  members,  it  is  not  necessary  that 
these  should  assemble  in  a  public  meeting  and  set  forth  their 
opinions  in  a  preamble  and  resolutions.  So,  too,  the  doctrines  of 
the  Catholic  church  can  be  known  by  the  universal  and  concor- 
dant teaching  of  her  pastors,  even  when  her  bishops  have  not 
assembled  in  a  general  council  and  embodied  those  doctrines  in 


APPENDIX.  371 

a  list  of  decrees.  When  general  councils  are  held,  it  is,  on  the 
head  of  doctrine,  merely  to  declare  and  define  wliat  doctrines 
have  ever  been  taught  and  believed  in  tlie  church.  This  is  what 
the  Council  of  Trent  did  on  the  canon  of  Scriptures. 

The  Apostles  left  to  the  infant  church  those  inspired  works 
which  Catholics  now  hold.  They  were  universally  used,  except- 
ing perhaps  in  a  few  churches,  for  whose  variations  I  shall  ac- 
count when  treating  of  your  second  argument.  After  a  number 
of  years,  circumstances  arose  which  led  some  persons  to  doubt 
whether  the  Universal  Church,  though  she  ever  had  and  still 
continued  to  use  them,  did  so,  because  she  looked  on  all  as  in- 
spired, or  some  merely  as  pious  and  instructive  works.  Other 
works,  too,  were  protruded  as  inspired,  and  some  seemed  to  ob- 
tain partial  circulation.  An  expression  of  the  belief  of  the  body 
of  pastors  was  required.  It  was  again  and  again  given  in  the 
councils  of  Carthage  and  Hippo,  and  the  decisions  of  Innocent 
I.  and  Gelasius.  In  these  the  whole  body  of  pastors  acqui- 
esced ;  and  for  a  thousand  years  no  objection  of  any  importance 
was  made.  After  that  period  arose  Protestantism.  Luther  and 
his  followers  denounced  many  books,  not  those  alone  you  con- 
trovert, but  others  also  which  you  revere  as  inspired,  in  terms 
compared  to  which  even  your  essay  is  courteous.  Some  Catho- 
lics, too,  seemed  to  think  the  former  decision  had  not  been  sutli- 
ciently  explicit;  and  therefore  the  Bishops  at  Trent,  assisted  by 
the  most  learned  divines,  canonists  and  scholars,  after  every  pos- 
sible research  and  the  fullest  investigation,  decided  again,  that 
all  those  books  in  the  Catholic  Bible  had  been  handed  down 
from  the  Apostles,  had  ever  been  held  in  the  church  as  inspired, 
and  should  therefore  be  still  revered  as  sacred  and  canonic.W. 
These  different  assertions  I  shall  sustain  by  due  authority  "hen 
I  answer  your  second  argument. 

But  many  objections  have  been  urged  againsf  the  truth  ol 
that  decision.  I  ask  you,  Rev.  Sir,  is  there  any  doctrine  of  rev- 
elation against  which  many  arguments  h-ivc  not  been  urged  ? 
Have  not  the  very  existence  of  God  and  his  Unity  been  assail- 
ed ?  Have  not  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Incarnation 
of  the  Son,  and  every  doctri/ie  of  Christianity  been  attacked? 
The  fact   therefore  of  opposition  is  no  disproof      Nor   is  it    ne- 


372  APPENDIX. 

cessary  for  the  true  believer  to  be  able  to  answer  every  cavil  or 
sophism.  Surely  the  negro  cannot  answer,  cannot  even  compre- 
hend, the  arguments  brought  against  the  existence  of  God,  Is  he 
therefore  doomed  to  remain  an  Atheist?  When  we  know  posi- 
tively and  clearly  that  God  requires  us  to  believe  a  certain  doc- 
trine because  he  declares  it  to  be  true,  we  are  bound  to  obey  un- 
conditionally. Common  sense  tells  us  that  every  objection  to  it 
must  be  based  on  error,  even  though  we  be  unable  to  point  it 
ont.  And  so  too  a  Catholic  relies  on  the  authorized  decision  of 
his  church  concerning  the  inspired  writings  with  surety,  classing 
all  the  objections  urged  thereagainst,  with  the  numberless  other 
objections  urged  in  like  manner  against  every  truth  of  Divine 
revelation,  against  the  Deity  himself,  which,  according  to  his 
degree  of  knowledge,  he  may  or  may  not  be  able  to  refute,  but 
which  he  knows  by  a  priori  evidence  of  the  strongest  character 
must  be  false. 

I  trust  that  "  a  candid  and  unprejudiced  mind"  will,  upon  a 
mature  consideration  of  the  arguments  I  have  brought  forward, 
see  that  the  act  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  so  far  from  being  a 
*'  striking  display  of  intolerable  arrogance,"  was  a  decision,  with 
the  divine  authority  for  which,  and  therefore  its  truth,  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Scriptures  for  the  vast  majority  of  Christians,  and 
consequently  on  Protestant  principles,  Christianity  itself  must 
stand  of  fall. 

After  thus  establishing  the  absolute  necessity  of  admitting 
that  authority,  which  you  impugn,  and  showing  the  frightful  con- 
sequences of  a  contrary  course — consequences,  from  which,  I 
am  certain,  you  will  shrink — I  might  rest  satisfied  that  I  have  ful- 
ly answered  your  essay  and  proved  by  clear  and  cogent  arguments 
the  inspiration  of  those  works  against  which  it  is  directed. — 
Whatever  else  I  may  say  will  be  "  over  and  above  what  is  actual- 
ly required."  "  With  the  distinct  understanding,  then,  that  I  am 
doing  a  work,  which  justice  to  our  cause  does  not  absolutely  re- 
quire," but  which  places  the  truth,  not  in  a  former  position  but 
in  a  stronger  light,  I  will  proceed  in  my  next  to  notice  those  ar- 
guments you  so  confidently  term  "  irresistible."  Meanwhile 

I  remain,  Rev.  Sir, 

Yours,  &bc. 

A.  P.  F. 


APPENDIX.  373 


LETTER  II. 


To  the   Rev.  James  H,  Thornwell,  Professor  of  the  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity^ 6{c. 

Rev.  Sir: — In  the  introductory  remarks  to  your  essay,  you  said 
you  were  not  required  to  advance  a  single  argument  against  the 
books  of*  Tobit,  Judith,  the  additions  to  the  Book  of  Esther,  Wis- 
dom, Ecclesiasticus,  Baruchivith  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah,  the  Song 
of  the  Three  Children,  the  Story  of  Susannah,  the  Story  of  Bel 
and  the  Dragon,  and  the  first  and  second  books  of  Maccabees'^ 
It  would,  at  first  sight,  appear  from  your  article  that  Catholics 
urge  only  the  authority  of  the  Council  of  Trent  in  behalf  of  the 
inspiration  of  those  books  and  parts  of  books.  You  have  scarcely 
given  us  the  credit  of  advancing  a  single  argument  in  corrobora- 
tion of  the  truth  of  that  decree.  "  A  candid  and  unprejudiced 
mind"  would,  methinks,  have  desired  from  you  at  least  a  full  and 
fair  statement  of  what  reasons  we  do  bring  forward.  Your  po- 
sition forbids  my  supposing  you  ignorant  of  at  least  some  of 
them.  Still  I  cannot  say  I  regret  the  course  you  have  taken, 
though  it  is  not  the  one  I  would  have  chosen.  Every  impartial, 
'*  thinkincr  mind,"  even  thoucrh  he  knew  nothincr  of  the  Catholic 
view  of  the  question,  would  see  that  yours  is  completely  an  ultra 
party  exposition  of  the  case,  and  that,  before  forming  his  deci- 
sion, common  prudence  requires  him  to  hear  the  other  side.  I 
trust  that  my  letters  may  foil  into  the  hands  of  some  such. 

In  my  first,  I  treated  of  the  authority  of  the  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  which  declared  those  works  **  sacred  and  ca- 
nonical ;"  and  showed  by  a  line  of  argument,  which,  although 
not  conclusive  to  an  infidel,  must  be  so  to  every  Christian,  be- 
cause based  on  the  very  nature  of  Christianity,  that  in  the  de- 
cree itself  we  had  clear  and  cogent  proof  of  their  inspiration. 
I  argued  thus:  No  man  can  be  called  on  to  believe  \\hat  is  not 
sustained  by  adequate  proof  Hence,  when  God  proposes  any 
truth  for  the  belief  of  man,  he  sustains  it  by  adequate  proof  His 
own  Divine  veracity  would  fully  constitute  that  proof  for  the  in- 
dividual to  whom  he  sj)eaks.  For  others  it  is  necessary  that  the 
additional  fact,  that  God  did  reveal   his  truth  to  tliat  individual, 


374  APPENDIX.  . 

be  also  sustained  by  adequate  proof.  Nothing  deserves  that 
name,  which  cannot  be  learned  or  understood,  or  which,  if 
learned  and  understood,  would  lead  to  error,  or  leave  room  for 
reasonable  doubt. 

You  hold  that  one  of  the  truths  proposed  by  Almighty  God 
for  the  belief  of  all  Christians,  to  whom  Christianity  is  duly  an- 
nounced, is,  that  certain  works  are  inspired.  Unless  we  betake 
ourselves  to  the  tenets  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  say  that  He 
declares  by  a  special  revelation  or  teaching  of  the  Private  Spirit 
to  every  individual,  what  books  are  and  what  are  not  inspired, 
(which  neither  of  us  is  willing  to  do,)  we  must  confess  that  this 
truth  is  one  communicated  to  man  many  ages  ago,  and  which  is 
now  to  be  believed  by  all  those  Christians  of  every  class  and  con- 
dition and  clime,  because  of  that  communication.  Of  this  com- 
munication there  does,  therefore,  there  must  exist  adequate  proof 
for  all  such  persons.  There  can  be  but  four  methods  of  obtain- 
ing that  proof,  three  of  which  we  saw  must  be  rejected,  and  the 
fourth  consequently  admitted. 

The  first,  a  personal  examination  by  each  individual  of  the 
arguments,  historical  or  intrinsic,  in  favor  and  against  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Scripture,  even  if  such  an  examination  would 
ever  lead  to  a  certain  result,  could  not  be  admitted,  because  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  Christians  are  prevented  from  institut- 
ing that  examination,  by  the  duties  and  the  circumstances  of  that 
condition  in  which  Divine  Providence  has  placed  them.  The 
second,  that  the  learned  should  decide  for  and  be  followed  by 
the  unlearned,  would  lead  some  to  error,  as  some  of  the  learned 
thus  to  be  followed  have  decided  erroneously.  The  third,  that 
all  Christians  should  learn  what  books  are  in  reality  inspired  from 
some  individual  commissioned  by  Almighty  God  to  announce 
this  truth  to  the  world,  was,  as  we  saw,  untenable,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  no  such  declaration  from  an  individual  thus  commis- 
sioned, exists.  We  were  forced,  therefore,  to  admit  the  fowth^ 
that  all  Christians  should  learn  what  books  compose  the  divinely 
inspired  Scripture  from  a  body  of  individuals  whom  God  has  au- 
thorized to  decide  on  that  point,  and  guarantees  from  error  in  so 
deciding.  We  saw  that  this  method  was  feasible,  adapted  to  the 
capacity  and   condition  of  every  Christian,  and  consonant  with 


APPENDIX.  375 

the  essence  of  religion,  //"adopted,  it  would  certainly  lead  to 
truth.  In  one  word,  it  alone  was  feasible  and  effective.  It  fnust, 
therefore,  be  admitted,  unless  we  say  that  the  overwhelmino-  ma- 
jority  of  Christians  are  "  solemnly  bound,"  unless  "  they  run  the 
risk  of  everlasting  damnation,"  to  reject  tiie  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  be,  on  Protestant  principles,  perfect  infidels — 
unless  we  overturn  Christianity  itself.  The  Pastors  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  ALONE  claim  to  compose  that  body.  They,  there- 
fore, DO  compose  it.  Their  decisions  on  the  question  of  inspi- 
ration are  guaranteed  by  Almighty  God  from  error.  They  have 
numbered  the  books  you  controvert  among  the  inspired  Scrip- 
tures.    Therefore  those  books  are  **  sacred  and  canonical.'^ 

I  conceive  that  I  have  thus  satisfactorily  discharged  the  onus 
probandi.  As  I  said  above,  Catholics  corroborate  this  decree  by 
many  other  arguments,  improbable  as  this  may  appear  to  those 
who  look  on  your  essay  as  a  fair  and  candid  exposition  of  the 
state  of  this  controversy.  This  might  be  the  most  proper  place 
for  introducing  them.  But  as,  in  order  to  develope  them  fully,  I 
would  have  to  say  much  which  I  should  again  repeat  in  answer- 
ing your  **  irresistible"  arguments,  I  will  defer  doing  so  just  now ; 
and  will  proceed  to  test  the  force  of  those  same  "  irresistible" 
arguments. 

The  first  you  state  in  the  following  words  : — 
"  I.  Our  first  argument  is  drawn  from  the  indisputable  fact 
that  these  books  were  not  found  in  the  canon  of  the  Jews  in  the 
time  of  our  Saviour  and  his  Apostles.  It  is  even  doubted  by 
learned  men,  whether  some  of  them  existed  at  all  until  some 
time  after  the  Apostles  had  fallen  asleep.  But  be  this  as  it  may, 
they  were  not  in  the  sacred  canon  of  the  Jews,  or  the  catalogue 
of  books  which  the  whole  nation  received  as  cominor  from  God. 
We  have  very  clear  testimony  upon  the  subject  of  the  Jewish 
canon,  in  Josephus,  Philo,  the  Talmud  and  the  early  Christian 
Fathers.  It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  these  testimonies  at  full 
length.  Those  who  have  not  access  to  the  original  works,  may 
find  them  faithfully  collated  in  Srlnnidius  dr.  Canone  Sacro,  and 
ihc  Kir hhorn's  Kinlntuuir.  We  would  particularly  commend  to 
the  reader's  attention  llornnnann's  book  dr  (,'anunr  Philonis. 
Augustine  again  and  again  confesses  that  the  Apocrypha  formed 


876  APPENDIX. 

no  part  of  the  Jewish  canon.  He  declares  that  SoJomon  was 
not  the  author  of  the  books  of  EcGlesiasticus  and  Wisdom,  and 
assures  us,  moreover,  that  those  books  were  chiefly  respected  by 
the  Western  €lhristians.  He  informs  us  that  Judith  was  not  re- 
ceived by  the  Jews;  and  his  testimony  in  relation  to  Maccabees 
is  equally  decisive.  We  insist  upon  the  testimony  of  Augustine, 
which  may  be  found  in  his  Treatise  De  Civ.  Dei,  lib.  i.  c.  17, 
because  he  had  evidently  a  very  great  respect  for  these  books — 
for  he  frequently  quotes  them,  and  because  he  was  a  member  of 
the  body  whose  decisions  in  their  favor  have  been  strongly  and 
earnestly  pleaded.  We  take  it,  then,  to  be  a  fact  which  no 
scholar  would  think  of  calling  into  question,  sustained  by  the 
concurring  testimony  of  Jews  and  Christians  for  four  hundred 
years  after  Christ,  that  the  Jews  rejected  the  Apocrypha  from 
their  canon.  For  the  purpose  of  our  present  argument  it  is  not 
necessary  to  show  what  books  they  did  receive,  nor  how  they 
classed  and  arranged  them.  It  is  enough  that  they  had  a  canon 
which  they  believed  to  be  inspired,  and  that  in  it  the  Apocrypha 
iDcre  not  included. 

"  Now  our  argument  is  this  :  Jesus  Christ  and  his  Apostles  ap- 
proved of  the  Jewish  canon,  whatever  it  was;  appealed  to  it  as 
possessing  Divine  authority;  and  evidently  treated  it  as  at  that 
time  complete,  or  as  containing  the  whole  of  God's  revelation  as 
far  as  it  was  then  made.  If  the  Apocrypha  had  been  really  a 
part  of  that  revelation,  and  the  Jews  had  either  ignorantly  or 
wickedly  suppressed  it,  how  comes  it  that  Christ  nowhere  re- 
bukes them  for  their  error  %  We  find  him  severely  inveighing 
against  the  Pharisees  for  adding  to  the  Word  of  God  by  their 
vain  traditions^  but  not  a  syllable  do  we  hear  in  regard  to  what 
was  equally  culpable,  their  taking  from  it,  which  they  certainly 
had  done  if  the  Apocrypha  were  inspired.  Here  was  confess- 
edly a  great  teacher  and  prophet  in  Israel — their  long-expected 
Messiah,  who  constituted  the  burden  of  their  Scriptures  accord- 
ing to  his  own  testimony  :  and  yet,  while  he  quotes  and  approves 
the  canon  of  the  Jews,  and  remands  the  Jews  themselves  to  their 
own  Scriptures,  he  nowhere  insinuates  that  their  sacred  library 
was  defective.  If  the  Jews  had  done  wrong  in  rejecting  the 
Apocrypha,  is  it  credible  that  he  who  came    in  the  name  of 


APPENDIX.  3*7 

God — a  teacher  sent  Irom  God  to  reveal  fully  the  Divine  will, 
would  have  passed  over  without  noticing  such  a  flagrant  fraud  ? 
We  find  him  reproving  his  countrymen  for  every  other  cor- 
ruption in  regard  to  sacred  things  of  which  they  are  known  to 
have  been  guilty,  but  not  a  whisper  escapes  his  lips  or  the  lips 
of  his  Apostles  touching  this  gross  suppression  of  a  large  portion 
of  the  Word  of  God,  The  conclusion  is  irresistible,  that  neither 
Jesus  nor  his  Apostles  believed  in  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
Apocrypha — they  knew  that  they  loere  not  inspired.  We  will  errant 
the  Romanist  what  he  cannot  prove,  and  what  loc  can  disprove, 
that  these  books  are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  This  will 
not  remove  the  difficulty.  According  to  his  views  of  the  canon, 
the  Jews  were  guilty  of  an  outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the 
Sacred  Oracles,  and  yet  neither  Christ  nor  his  Apostles,  whose 
business  it  was  to  give  us  the  zohole  revelation  of  God,  ever 
charged  them  with  this  fraud,  or  took  any  steps  to  restore  the  re- 
jected books  to  their  proper  places.  Christ,  as  the  great  Prophet 
of  the  church,  was  unfaithful  to  his  high  and  solemn  trust,  if 
he  stood  silently  by  when  the  Word  of  God  was  trampled  in  the 
dust  or  buri'ed  in  obscurity,  or  even  robbed  of  its  full  authority. 
To  the  Jews  were  committed  the  Oracles  of  God  (Rom.  iii.  2)  ; 
if  they  betrayed  their  trust,  we  ought  to  have  been  infcxrmed  of 
it  before  the  lapse  of  sixteen  centuries. 

"  It  is  vain  to  allege  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  used  the 
Septuagint,  and  that  this  version  contained  the  Apocrypha.  In 
the  first  place,  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the  Septuagint  at  that 
time  did  contain  the  Apocrypha  ;  in  the  second  place,  if  it  did 
contain  them,  the  difiiculty  is  rather  increased  than  lessened. 
The  question  is,  What  books  did  the  Jews,  to  whom  were  com- 
mitted the  Oracles  of  God,  receive  as  inspired  ?  Did  Christ 
know  that  they  rejected  the  Apocrypha  from  the  list  of  inspired 
writings  ?  If  so,  and  the  Septuagint  version  was  in  his  hands 
and  really  contained  these  rejected  books,  what  more  natural  than 
that  Christ  should  have  told  his  Apostles  that  here  are  books 
which  the  Jews  reject,  but  which  you  must  receive — they  are  of 
equal  authority  with  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms  ? 
His  total  silence  both  before  the  Jews  and  his  own  di.scipIos,  be- 
comes more  unaccountable  than  ever,  if  the  books  were  actually 

n* 


378  APPENDIX, 

before  him  and  almost  forced  upon  his  notice  by  the  version  of 
the  Scriptures  which  he  used.  But  we  do  not  insist  upon  this, 
because  we  do  not  believe  that  the  Septuagint,  at  that  time,  con- 
tained the  Apocrypha.*  If  it  should  be  said  that  the  Jews  re- 
ceived these  books  as  inspired,  but  did  not  insert  them  in  the 
canon  because  they  had  not  the  authority  of  a  prophet  for  doing 
so,  why  is  it  that  Christ  did  not  give  the  requisite  authority,  if 
not  to  the  Jewish  Priests  and  Rulers,  at  least  to  his  own  Apostles  1 

"  Upon  every  view  of  the  subject,  then,  the  silence  of  Christ 
is  wh«>lly  unaccountable,  if  these  writings  are  really  inspired.  It 
becomes  simple  and  natural  upon  the  supposition  that  they  were 
merely  human  productions.  The  Jews  had  done  right  in  reject- 
ing them — they  stood  upon  a  footing  with  other  literary  works, 
and  our  Saviour  had  no  more  occasion  to  mention  them  than  he 
had  to  mention  the  writings  of  the  Greek  Philosophers." 

Now,  Rev.  Sir,  you  say  that  a  Canon  is  not  an  inspired  book, 
but  a  list  or  catalogue  of  inspired  works.  You  lay  down  the 
proposition,  which  I  admit,  that  at  the  time  of  the  Saviour  the 
Jewish  Synagogue  had  such  a  canon,  and  that  the  books  you 
controvert  were  not  included  therein.  There  might  be  some  dis- 
cussion as  to  part  of  what  you  exclude,  but  I  will  not  argue  the 
point.  Even  be  it,  if  you  will,  that  during  the  preaching  of  the 
Saviour,  not  one  of  the  books  or  parts  of  books,  the  inspiration  of 
which  you  deny,  was  included  in  the  canon  of  the  Synagogue  of 
Jerusalem. 

You  then  make  the  four  following  assertions: 

1.  That  the  Jews  "  rejected"  those  books  from  their  canon  in 
such  a  manner  as,  were  they  in  truth  inspired,  to  be  guilty  of  an 
outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the  *'  Sacred  Oracles." 

2.  That  "  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles  approved  of  the 
Jewish  canon." 

3.  That  they  "  appealed  to  it  as  possessing  divine  authority." 

4.  That  they  "  evidently  treated  it  as  complete,  or  as  contain- 
ing the  whole  of  God's  revelation,  as  far  as  it  was  then  made," 

Now,  Rev.  Sir,  in  regard  to  the  last  three  points  I  notice  a 
very  serious  oversight  in  your  essay.     You  have  entirely  forgotten 

*  Vid.  Schmidius  de  Canone. 


APPENDIX.  379 

or  omitted  to  allege,  or  even  by  note  to  refer  to,  a  single  passage  of 
the  New  Testament,  wherein  the  Saviour  or  the  Apostles  speaks 
at  all  of  the  canon  of  the  Jews.  They  refer  to  the  Scriptures 
generally  and  to  particular  books,  they  quote  from  them,  but  there 
is  not  in  the  whole  New  Testament  a  single  passage  showing  that 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  ever  refcrcd  to  the  canon,  catalogue,  or 
list  of  inspired  books  held  among  the  Jews,  much  less  treated 
that  catalogue  as  complete,  and  "  containing  the  whole  of  God's 
Revelation,  as  far  as  then  made." 

But  what  you  cannot  sustain  by  an  appeal  to  the  words  of  the 
Saviour  or  of  the  Apostles,  you  seek  to  establish  by  inference. 
If  those  works  are,  as  the  Council  of  Trent  declared  them  to  be, 
in  reality  divinely  inspired,  the  Jewish  nation,  in  not  admitting 
them  into  their  canon,  **  betrayed  their  trust,"  were  guilty  of 
"  fraud,"  **  trampled  in  the  dust,  or  buried  in  obscurity,  or  even 
robbed  of  its  full  authority"  the  word  of  God,  were  "  guilty  of 
an  outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the  Sacred  Oracles."  '*  It  was 
the  business  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles  to  give  us  the  whole  reve- 
lation of  God."  .Consequently,  in  that  case  they  "would  have 
charged  the  Jews  with  this  fraud,  or  taken  some  steps  to  restore 
the  rejected  books  to  their  proper  places."  He  did  not;  neither 
did  his  Apostles.  Therefore  those  books  are  not  inspired,  are  of 
*'  no  more  authority  than  Seneca's  Letters  or  Tully's  OfTices," 
and  the  Jewish  canon,  which  did  not  contain  them,  was  then 
"  complete,"  and  was  treated  as  such  by  the  Saviour  and  Apos- 
tles. This,  if  I  understand  you,  is  the  pith  of  your  argument; 
ill  which,  by  the  by,  yt)ur  tiiird  assertion  is  still  left  entirely  un- 
supi)orted. 

Before  answering  this  argument,  allow  me  to  make  a  few  pre- 
liminary observations. 

1st.  That  there  is  great  difference  between  not  inserting  a 
work  really  inspired,  in  a  Canon,  because  there  is  not  requisite 
j)ro()f  to  establish  its  inspiration,  or  sunicient  authority  to  insert 
it;  and  rejecting  it,  when  that  proof  and  authority  both  exist. 
The  first  course  is  proper — to  insert  a  book  under  such  circum- 
stances would  be  criminal.  The  second  deserves  all  the  terms 
you  use.  The  first  was  the  case  of  the  Jews.  Without  a  shadow 
of  proof  therefor,  you   charge  them  with  the  second,   if  those 


380  APPENDIX. 

works  are  inspired.  In  your  argument  this  distinction  seems  not 
to  have  struck  you,  or  you  have  kept  it  out  of  sight  until  the 
end.  You  admit  it,  however,  tov.^ards  the  close,  when  you  say: 
"If  it  should  be  said  that  the  Jews  received  those  books  as  yj- 
spired,  but  did  not  insert  them  in  the  canon,  because  they  had 
not  the  authority  of  a  prophet  for  doing  so,"  etc. 

2d.  In  case  those  books  were  in  reality  inspired,  though  not 
inserted  in  the  Jewish  canon,  it  would  have  been  sufficient  for  the 
Saviour  or  the  Apostles  to  place  them  among  the  divinely  inspired 
books  of  the  church.  This  I  think  evident  to  every  Christian, 
You  seem  to  admit  it,  also,  when  you  ask  :  ''  Why  is  it  that 
Christ  did  not  give  the  requisite  authority,  if  not  to  the  Jewish 
Rulers  and  Priests,  at  least  to  his  own  Apostles'?" 

3d.  Christ  and  his  Apostles  might  have  said  much  in  regard 
to  the  Scriptures  and  inspired  books,  which  is  not  recorded  in 
the  New  Testament.  I  cannot  quote  higher  and  fuller  authority 
than  the  New  Testament  itself.  "  But  there  are  also  many  other 
things  which  Jesus  did  ;  which  if  they  were  written  every  one, 
the  world  itself,  I  think,  would  not  be  able  to  contain  the  books 
that  should  be  written."  John  xxi.  25.  "  To  whom  (the  Apos- 
tles) also  he  (Jesus)  showed  himself  alive  after  his  passion  by 
many  proofs,  for  forty  days  appearing  to  them,  and  speaking  of 
the  kingdom  of  God."  Acts  i.  3.  "Therefore,  brethren,  stand 
fast,  and  hold  the  traditions  which  you  have  received,  whether  by 
word  or  by  our  Epistle."  2  Thess.  ii.  14.  I  might  quote  other 
texts,  but  my  remark  is  evidently  true.  Did  not  the  Apostles 
change  the  Jewish  Sabbath  for  the  Lord's  day,  making  this  a 
day  of  rest  consecrated  to  God,  and  abrogating  the  first  ?  Where 
will  you  find  that  in  the  New  Testament  ?  This,  too,  you  seem 
to  allow  is  possible,  as  you  begin  your  second  argument  with  the 
following  words  :  "  If  it  should  be  pretended  that  Christ  did  give 
his  Apostles  authority  to  receive  these  books,  though  no  record 
was  made  of  the  fact,  we  ask,"  etc. 

4tli.  I  might  also  make  another  remark.  Supposing  those 
works  inspired,  as  I  contend  they  are,  but  not  admitted  at  the 
Saviour's  time  into  the  Jewish  canon,  it  was  not,  strictly  speaking, 
necessary  that  either  Christ  or  the  Apostles  should  testify  person- 
ally to  their  inspiration.     If  the  Saviour  established  a  body  of 


AI*PENDIX.  'i^l 

men,  who,  by  his  authority  and  under  the  guidance  of  His  Holy 
Spirit  of  Truth,  were  to  decide  that  question,  which,  as  I  showed 
in  Letter  I.,  we  are  ncce.^arily  bound  to  admit,  the  decision  of 
such  a  body  at  any  subsequent  period  would  be  amply  sulhcient. 
The  Christian  world  would  have  had,  in  the  mean  limc,  many 
other  divinely  inspired  works.  If  God  was  not  pleased  to  give 
any  inspired  works  to  the  children  of  Israel  before  Moses,  nor  to 
inspire  the  prophets  till  a  far  later  period,  surely  it  would  be  the 
height  of  presumption  in  us  now  to  lay  down  rifles  to  Him,  pre- 
scribing lohcn  he  should  inspire  a  work  or  establish  its  inspiration. 
This  is  more  evident,  when  we  consider  that  the  Jews  had,  and  the 
Christians  must  still  have,  some  method  of  truly  and  satisfactorily 
ascertaining  the  truths  of  Revelation,  other  than  the  simple 
perusal  of  all  the  inspired  works.  In  regard  to  the  Jews,  this  is 
evident,  and  is  allowed  by  themselves.  That  Christians,  too, 
have  such  a  mode,  (a  doctrine  you  are  aware  Catholics  hold^)  is 
shown  to  be  necessarily  true  by  a  train  of  argument  similar  to 
that  of  my  preceding  letter,  and  equally  cogent.'  Surely  the 
300,000  negroes  in  South  Carolina  prohibited  by  law  from  being 
taught  to  read,  cannot  learn  much  from  the  perusal  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Must  they  therefore  remain  ignorant  of  the  truths  of 
Christianity?  Again,  has  God  ever  declared  that  he  will  never 
inspire  another  work?  And  if  He  has  not  limited  his  omnipo- 
tence, shall  we  dare  to  place  bounds  to  it?  Now,  in  point  of 
fact,  as  far  as  the  Christian  world  is  concerned,  there  would  be 
little  if  any  dilTerence  between  His  inspiring  a  work  500,  1,000, 
or  2,000  years  after  Christ,  and  His  then  making  known,  in  any 
way  He  thinks  proper,  that  a  work  written  any  number  of  years 
before,  is  inspired.  I  make  this  remark,  not  because  I  intend  to 
use  it  in  my  argument,  but  because  it  is  highly  improper  to  bind 
down  the  Providence  of  God,  in  regard  to  the  inspired  writings, 
to  certain  laws  and  times,  as  you  seem  to  do,  that  have  no  founda- 
tii)n  in  truth.  The  Saviour  came,  if  you  will,  to  give  us  the 
whole  Revelation  of  God,  that  is,  all  the  doctrinal  tnitli>  of  that 
revelation,  but  not  all  the  inspired  works;  for  not  one  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  was  written  until  years  after  his  cru- 
cifixion. St.  John  wrote  the  last  after  the  year  90.  Alany  early 
Christians  thought  that  the  Pastor  of  Hermes,  written  many  years 


382  APPENDIX. 

still  later,  was  inspired.  They  were  mistaken ;  but  even  that 
error  shows  that  they,  at  that  early  age,  knew  of  no  declaration 
of  the  Saviour  or  Apostles  that  there  should  be  no  more  inspired 
books. 

With  these  prefatory  observations,  I  take  up  your  argument 
as  simply  stated  above,  and  meet  it  by  answering,  that  when  the 
Jewish  synagogue  did  not  admit  those  works  into  the  canon,  it 
was  because  of  the  want  of  proof  of  their  inspiration,  and  per- 
haps want  of  authority  to  amend  an  already  duly  established 
canon  ;  and  that  therefore  they  were  not  guilty  of  the  heinous  sin 
you  lay  at  their  door:  and,  secondly,  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles 
did  take  some  steps,  not  indeed  to  insert  those  books  in  the 
Jewish  canon,  but  to  give  them  to  the  Christians  as  divinely  in- 
spired works;  and  it  is  in  consequence  of  those  steps,  that  the 
Catholic  church  has  ever  held  them  as  inspired,  and  the  Council 
of  Trent  enumerated  them  in  the  list  of  ''Sacred  and  Canon- 
ical" works. 

The  distinction  laid  down  in  my  first  remark,  completely  nul- 
lifies your  argument.  In  order  to  convict  the  Jews  of  an  "  out- 
rageous fraud  in  regard  to  the  sacred  oracles,"  if  those  works 
are  inspired,  you  should  show,  not  only  that  those  works  were  not 
inserted  in  the  national  canon,  but  also  that  when  a  work  was  in- 
spired, sufficient  proof  thereof  was  ever  offered  under  the  syna- 
gogue, and  that  there  also  ever  existed  some  individual  or  body  of 
men  who  had  authority  to  act  on  such  proof,  and  to  amend  accord- 
ingly that  national  canon.  Need  I  say  that  in  your  dissertation 
we  look  in  vain  for  any  thing  establishing  either  of  those  points? 
The  only  remark  bearing  on  them  is  that  already  refered  to  :  "  If 
it  should  be  said  that  the  Jews  received  those  books  as  inspired, 
but  did  not  insert  them  in  the  canon,  because  they  had  not  the 
authority  of  a  prophet  for  doing  so,  why  is  it  that  Christ  did  not 
give  the  requisite  authority, if  not  to  the  Jewish  priests  and  rulers, 
at  least  to  his  own  Apostles?"  I  assert  that  the  Saviour  did  give 
to  His  Apostles  and  their  successors  every  power  that  was  neces- 
sary. This  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence  from  the  argu- 
ment laid  down  in  my  previous  letter,  and  I  will  further  sustain 
it  by  historical  evidence.  But  even  had  He  done  nothing  direct- 
ly or  indirectly,  recorded  or  unrecorded,  on  the  matter,  the  only 


APPENDIX.  38;3 

legitimate  consequence  would  be  tluit  He  was  not  pleased  ever  to 
prove  authoritatively  the  inspiration  of  those  books.  I  confess  it 
would  be  highly  probable  they  were  uninspired,  but  their  want  of 
inspiration  would  not  be  an  inevitable  consequence.  Were  not 
the  vision  of  Addo,  and  other  works  I  will  mention  below,  in- 
spired, though  now  lost,  and  known  only  by  name  ?  Who  can 
say  that  the  other  prophets  of  those  days  did  not  write  works, 
even  whose  names  are  unknown  ?  They  doubtless  served  the 
particular  end  for  which  God  designed  them.  But  even  had  the 
Saviour  acted  in  such  a  matter  as  to  show  evidently  that  those 
works  were  uninspired,  this  would  not  touch  either  of  two  points 
so  important  to  the  validity  of  your  argument.  These,  Rev.  Sir, 
you  have  assumed  without  any  show  of  reason  or  authority.  Your 
argument  is  valueless,  and  crumbles  under  its  own  "  irresistible  " 
weiijht. 

I  might  here  dismiss  this  part  of  your  essay,  as  the  onus  was 
certainly  on  you  to  prove  every  thing  necessary  to  make  your 
argument  conclusive.  However,  even  though  it  be  something 
"over  and  above"  what  jiustice  to  my  cause  "absolutely  re- 
quired," I  will  lay  before  our  readers  a  few  remarks  on  the  na- 
tional canon  of  the  Jews. 

The  earliest  notice  of  an  authoritative  sanction  of  any  work 
among  the  Israelites,  is  found  in  the  command  of  Moses  to  the 
Levites,  (Deut.  xxxi.  24,  2(3,)  to  place  in  the  side,  or  by  the 
side  of  the  Ark,  the  volume  in  which  he  had  written  the  words 
of  the  law.  This  would  appear  to  designate  the  book  of  Deuter- 
onomy alone,  and  certainly  it  does  not  follow  from  the  words 
used,  that  Moses,  in  writinsr  that  volume,  received  the  supernat- 
ural assistance  of  Divine  Inspiration.  But  I  am  willing  to  admit 
that  the  entire  Pentateuch  was  even  in  that  early  period  known 
to  be  inspired,  and  was  used  in  the  public  services,  though  this 
last,  1  think,  cannot  be  proved.  Moses  died  in  the  year  1447 
before  Christ,  according  to  Calmct.  Esdras  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  4G2,  B.  C.  During  this 
period  of  nearly  1000  years,  many  inspired  works  were  written. 
We  have  a  number  of  them  in  the  Old  Testament.  Others,  too, 
were  written  which  no  longer  exist.  I  might  mention  the  book 
of  Samuel  the  Seer,  that  of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and  of  Gad  the 


:3S4 


APPENDIX. 


Seer,*  containing  accounts  not  found  in  our  Bible,  the  books  of 
Ahias  the  Silonite,  and  the  vision  of  Addo  the  Seer,t  the  books 
of  Semeias  the  Prophet, |  and  the  words  of  Hozai;§  and  might 
easily  swell  the  catalogue.  All  those  works,  extant  or  lost,  were 
in  all  probability  known  to  be  inspired  by  the  cotemporaries  of 
the  several  writers,  but  we  have  nothing  to  lead  us  to  suppose 
that  durincr  all  this  time  an  exact  cataloaue  or  canon  of  them  was 
formed  b)^ national  or  Divine  authority.  In  the  year  970  B.  C, 
after  many  of  them  were  written,  the  ten  tribes  separated  from 
the  kingdom  of  Judah,  not  a  few  of  the  Israelites  retaining  the 
true  faith.  After  they  were  borne  into  captivity,  and  other 
nations  introduced  into  their  country,  these  new  comers  were 
instructed  by  an  Israelite  priest  how  they  should  worship  the 
Lord  :  but  for  some  time  they  joined  therewith  heathen  profani- 
ties and  idolatry.  These,  however,  we  know  they  afterwards 
abandoned.  You  are  aware  they  still  exist,  and  that  they  have 
always  publicly  recognized  only  the  five  books  of  Moses  as  in- 
spired. It  would  appear,  then,  that  at  the  time  of  the  sejJaration 
of  the  children  of  Israel  under  Uplioboam,  no  canon  had  been 
yet  drawn  up  by  due  authority. 

This  is  more  evident  if  we  advert  to  the  fact  that  all  the  Jew- 
ish writers  attribute  the  formation  of  their  canon  to  the  Cheneseth 
Gliedolah,  or  great  Synagogue,  after  the  captivity  of  Babylon,  of 
which  Esdras  was  a  principal  member.  According  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Rabbins  generally,  this  synagogue  commenced 
under  Darius  Hystaspes,  and  ended  in  Simon,  surnamed  the 
Just,  high  priest  under  Seleucus  Nicanor.  All  agree  in  placing 
it  between  those  two  extremes,  and  some  restrict  it,  at  least  in 
its  flourishing  condition,  to  a  much  shorter  space.  It  seems  gen- 
erally to  be  allowed  that  the  greater  part  of  the  duty  in  regard 
to  the  Sacred  writings  devolved  on  Esdras  himself,  who  expur- 
gated the  Sacred  works  from  the  various  faults  into  which  copy- 
ists had  fallen,  and  collected  them  all  into  one  body,  introduced 


*  1  Paralip.  or  1  Chron.  xxix.  .30. 

t  2  Paralip.  or  2  Chron  ix.  29  ;  xii.  15  ;  xiii.  22. 

\  2  Paralip.  or  2  Chron.  xii.  15. 

§  2  Paralip.  or  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  19. 


AFPENDIX.  :i«5 

the  Jewish  divisions  of  I^cri.</iut,  Sidariiii,  and  I'tshuut,  and 
arranged  the  whole  into  books.  It  would  seem,  too,  and  ii  is 
generally  admitted,  that  various  additions  wereniade;  such  as 
the  conclusion  of  the  books  of  Deuteronomy  concerning  the 
death  of  Moses.  Grotius  thought  that  the  inscriptions  and  dates 
at  the  beginning  of  the  prophecies,  originated  here  too.  But  I 
do  not  see  why  we  need  go  so  far,  as  it  was  natural  that  the 
original  writers  should  place  them  there,  and  they  elsewhere 
occur  under  such  circumstances  as  show  them  to  be  evidently 
the  work  of  the  Prophets  themselves.  In  speaking  of  this  re- 
cension of  the  Scripture  and  formation  of  the  canon,  the  Jews 
generally  attributed  it  to  the  Chcncacth  Gludolah,  or  great  syna- 
gogue, as  in  the  treatise  Mcgldllah,  third  chapter  of  the  Ghe- 
mara,  they  say  this  synagogue  restored  the  pristine  purity  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  in  Baba  hathra,  chap.  1,  that  the  men  of  the 
great  synagogue  wrote  the  book  of  the  twelve  prophets,  and  the 
books  of  Daniel  and  Esther.  Eliasthe  Levite,  and  other  learned 
Rabbins,  treat  the  whole  work  as  that  of  the  svnairoirue.  Per- 
haps  we  would  not  be  fa*  from  the  truth  in  saying  that  Esdras, 
as  member  of  the  Sanhedrin,  revised  the  copies  of  the  sacred 
writings,  restored  the  true  reading,  collected  the  scattered  parts 
of  the  Psalms,  as  the  author  of  the  Synopsis  of  Scripture,  some- 
times attributed  to  St.  Athanasius,  and  St.  Hilary  (Prol.  in 
Psalm.)  say,  the  detached  Proverbs,  and  the  other  scattered 
parts,  and  arranged  the  whole  in  a  body  ;  and  that^the  synagocrue 
itself  authoritatively  sanctioned  the  work,  thus  establishing  a 
national  canon.  In  this  plan  we  must  admit  that  some  other 
books  were  superadded  at  a  posterior  date,  by  the  same  syna- 
gogue. In  arriving  at  a  decision  on  the  formation  of  this  canon, 
we  have  to  guide  ourselves,  not  by  the  infallible  unvarying  state- 
ments of  inspired  writers,  but  by  the  perplexed,  sometimes  con- 
tradictory, and  often  nearly  valueless  statements  of  historians 
who  wrote  long  afterwards.  One  thing  is  certain,  the  canon  was 
closed  after  the  admission  of  the  book  of  Nehemiah.  No  evi- 
dence whatever  exists  to  prove  the  existence  of  a  national  canon 
before  the  Babylonian  captivity.  The  Jewish  and  the  early 
Christian  writers  speak  of  this  alone,  and  their  testimonies,  care- 
fully weighed,  would  lead  to  the  opinion  I  have  stated. 


386  APPENDIX. 

What  were  the  ideas  of  the  Jews  on  this  subject  at  the  time 
of  the  Saviour,  may  be  learned  from  the  following  passage  of  Jo- 
sephus  Flavius,  in  his  first  book  against  Appion.  After  stating 
in  the  sixth  chapter  that  the  ancient  Jews  took  great  care  about 
writing  records  of  their  history,  and  that  they  committed  that 
matter  to  their  high  priests  and  their  prophets,  and  that  those  re- 
cords had  been  written  all  along  down  to  his  own  times  with  the 
utmost  acccuracy  :  and  in  the  seventh,  that  the  best  of  the  priests 
and  those  who  attended  upon  the  divine  worship,  were  appoint- 
ted  from  the  beginning  for  that  design,  and  that  great  care  was 
taken  that  the  race  of  the  priests  should  continue  unmixed  and 
pure,  he  continues : 

"  And  this  is  justly  or  rather  necessarily  done,  because  every 
one  is  not  permitted  of  his  own  accord  to  be  a  writer,  nor  is 
there  any  disagreement  in  what  is  written ;  they  being  only  pro- 
phets that  have  written  the  original  and  earliest  accounts  of 
things,  as  they  learned  them  of  God  himself  by  inspiration  ;  and 
others  have  written  what  hath  happened  in  their  own  times,  and 
that  in  a  very  distinct  manner  also.      ^' 

"  For  we  have  not  an  innumerable  multitude  of  books 
among  us,  disagreeing  from,  and  contradicting  one  another,  [as 
the  Greeks  have,]  but  only  twenty-two  books,  which  contain 
the  records  of  all  the  past  time;  which  are  justly  believed  to  be 
divine.  And  of  them,  five  belong  to  Moses,  which  contain  his 
laws,  and  the  traditions  of  the  oricrin  of  mankind  till  his  death. 
This  interval  of  time  from  the  death  of  Moses  till  the  reicrn  of 
Artaxerxes  king  of  Persia,  who  reigned  after  Xerxes,  the  pro- 
phets, who  were  after  Moses,  wrote  down  what  was  done  in  their 
times  in  thirteen  books.  The  remaining  four  books  contain 
hymns  to  God,  and  precepts  for  the  conduct  of  human  life.  It 
is  true,  our  history  hath  been  written  since  Artaxerxes  very  par- 
ticularly, but  hath  not  been  esteemed  of  the  like  authority  with 
the  former  by  our  forefathers,  because  there  hath  not  been  an  ex- 
act succession  of  prophets  since  that  time.  And  how  firmly  we 
have  given  credit  to  these  books  of  our  own  nation,  is  evident 
by  what  we  do  ;  for  during  so  many  ages  as  have  already  passed, 
no  one  hath  been  so  bold  as  either  to  add  any  thing  to  them,  to 
take  any  thing  from  them,  or  to  make  any  change  in  them." 


APPENDIX.  38? 

From  this  it  appears  that  there  were  among  the  Jews  at  our 
Saviour's  time  two  classes  of  books  which  were  deemed  worthy 
of  respect,  their  canonical  works  and  others  *'  not  esteemed  of 
the  like  authority.''  In  the  Jewish  writers  we  hnd  two  degrees 
of  inspiration  designated,  which  they  term  barrahh  haqqadush 
and  bebet  qol.  In  both  they  recognise  an  assistance  of  God,  and 
say  that  the  books  of  their  canon  attained  the  first  rank,  while 
the  second  degree  only  was  attained  by  writers  after  it  was  com- 
pleted. I  may  refer  you  to  the  Talmud,  Babn  Cama,  chap. 
Hacliobel,  where  the  work  of  Ben  Sirah,  as  they  style  Ecchsi- 
asticus,  R  declared  thus  inspired.  St.  Jerome  in  his  preface  to 
Judith  expressly  states  that  the  work  is  classed  by  the  Jews 
among  the  Hagiographa*  or  sacred  writings,  not  of  the  first 
class,  for  he  elsewhere  states  that  they  were  not  in  the  Jewish 
canon,  but  consequently  in  the  second.  The  books  of  Tobias, 
Judith  and  the  Maccabees  evidently  fall  under  the  class  specially 
mentioned  by  Josephus. 

I  do  not  feel  it  necessary,  Rev.  Sir,  to  dwell  at  length  on 
this  topic,  as  you  have  merely  assumed,  without  any  proof,  that 
the  Jews  rejected  as  uninspired,  mere  human  productions,  all 
books  not  contained  in  their  canon. 

The  Jewish  writers  declare  that  their  national  canon  was 
closed  and  sealed  by  the  Great  Synagogue;  and  that  books 
written  afterwards  attained  a  lower  degree  of  inspiration.  What 
authority  they  thought  necessary  and  suflicient  to  amend  that 
canon,  I  have  never  met  laid  down  by  any  one  of  them.  They 
seem  to  presuppose  that  no  such  authority  existed  in  fact.  Nor 
do  they  treat  of  the  evidence  suflicient  to  establish  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  work.  We  must  conclude,  then,  that  those  works 
were  never  brought  before  a  competent  tribunal  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  with  sufficient  evidence,  if  they  were  inspired,  to  prove 
it,  and  yet  were  rejected.  Nevertheless,  all  this  must  bo  proved: 
it  must  be  established  that  such  a  tribunal  did  exist;  that  those 
works  whose   inspiration   you  controvert,  were   laid    before  it; 

*  Some  copies  have  Apocrypha,  but  Jahn,  after  n  critical  exninination  of 
the  authorities,  decidfs  that  Hagiograjjlm  is  llie  true  original  reading,  and  the 
other  a  posterior  change. 


388  APPENDIX. 

that  if  they  were  mspired,  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  the  fact 
was  and  must  have  been  brought  forward  ;  and  finally  that  the 
tribunal  rejected  the  evidence,  condemned  the  books,  and  re- 
fused to  admit  them  into  the  canon.  This  you  have  not  endea- 
vored to  establish.  Had  you  endeavored,  you  would  have  failed, 
for  you  would  have  found  the  monuments  of  history  arrayed 
against  you.  And  yet  it  should  have  been  established  before 
you  could  reasonably  assert  that  in  regard  to  these  books,  if  they 
are  inspired,  the  Jewish  nation  had  been  ''  guilty  of  an  outra- 
geous fraud  on  the  Sacred  Oracles,"  and  that  consequently  they 
would  have  merited  and  received  a  severe  rebuke  from  the  Sa- 
viour, which  rebuke  the  Evangelists  were  bound  to  insert  in 
their  Gospels. 

But,  Rev.  Sir,  even  had  the  Jews  been  in  reality  thus  hei- 
nously guilty,  was  the  Saviour  bound  to  rebuke  them?  Did  not 
the  Sadducees  and  Samaritans  criminally  reject  as  uninspired, 
treat  merely  as  human  productions,  all  the  inspired  works  ex- 
cept the  Pentateuch  or  five  books  of  Moses  ?  We  know  that  He 
his  and  Apostles  conversed  with  them,  opposed  and  condemned 
their  errors;  but  where  did  He  charge  them  with  this  heinous 
fraud  ?  Or  even  had  He  rebuked  the  Jews,  I  cannot  see  ^hy 
the  Evangelists  were  bound  to  record  it  more  than  "  all  the 
other  things  that  Jesus  did,"  or  all  his  discourses  with  his  apos- 
tles for  forty  days  after  his  resurrection.  It  surely  would  have 
been  enough  to  condemn  and  correct  the  outrageous  fraud  of 
the  Jews,  had  any  been  committed,  to  leave  the  books  they 
omitted  to  the  ^church  which  He  founded;  and  for  us  it  would 
be  enough,  if  we  can  know  this  with  certainty.  This  leads  me 
to  the  second  part  of  my  answer  to  your  argument.  Did  the 
Saviour  and  his  Apostles  leave  those  books  and  parts  of  books 
to  the  early  Christians,  as  inspired  works  ? 

My  first  reply  would  be  based  on  the  principles  of  my  last 
letter.  There  must  be  a  sure  method  whereby  the  wearied 
little  sweep,  who  now  cries  under  my  window,  who  has  trudged 
the  streets  since  early  dawn,  and  ere  another  hour  will  bury  his 
limbs  in  balmy  sleep,  preparing  for  to-morrow's  task,  can  answer 
that  question  as  confidently  and  as  accurately  as  you.  Rev.  Sir, 
whom  years  of  study  have  made  conversant  with  ancient  Ian- 


APPENDIX.  380 

guages,  and  who  have  libraries  at  hand  and  leisure  to  pore  over 
the  tomes  of  other  days.  That  method  is  the  teaching  of  the 
Catholic  church,  divinely  guaranteed  from  error.  Were  ho  to 
ask  me,  to  that  church  and  her  testimony  I  would  refer  him  ; 
and  if  reason  and  common  sense  prove  aught,  you  must  admit 
that  the  answer  he  would  receive  at  her  hands  would  be  uner- 
ring. 

Yoi*  require  positive  proofs  from  history  of  the  fact,  and  I 
am  ready  to  bring  them  forward.  We  have,  as  I  stated — and 
your  argument  is  based  on  the  acknowledgment — no  record  in 
the  New  Testament  of  the  books  the  Apostles  or  the  Saviour 
did  leave  to  their  followers  as  inspired.  They  refer  to  the  Scrip- 
tures in  general,  and  quote  or  allude  to  particular  passages,  but 
have  nowhere  drawn  up  a  list  of  the  Scriptural  works.  The 
evidence  must  manifestly  be  drawn  from  the  history  of  the 
church,  whence  too  you  in  your  second  argument  have  endea- 
voured to  extract  proofs  for  your  cause.  As  I  intend  following 
the  divisions  of  your  essay,  I  will  reserve  the  testimonies  of  the 
early  Christian  writers  for  my  next  letter. 

Now  that  the  difficulty  you  imagined  so  unconquerable,  the 
fraud  of  the  Jews  and  the  necessity  for  its  recorded  condemna- 
tion, has  vanished,  you  will  probably  retract  your  concession  : 
"  We  will  grant "  the  Catholic  "  what  he  cannot  prove,  and 
what  ivc  can  disprove,  that  these  books  are  quoted  in  the  New 
Testament."  It  was  certainly  easier  and  more  prudent  to  pass 
by  this  argument  in  the  manner  you  have  done,  than  to  disprove 
it,  as  you  assert  you  can.  I  will  lay  before  you  some  of  the 
texts  of  the  New  Testament,  in  which  the  passages  of  those 
works  are  quoted  or  referred  to. 

1.  "  See  thou  never  do  to  another  what  thou  wouldst  hate  to 
have  done  to  thee  by  another."  Tob.  iv.  Hi.  '*  All  things, 
therefore,  whatsoever,  you  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do 
you  also  to  them."  Matt.  vii.  \2.  "And  as  you  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  you  also  to  them  in  like  manner." 
Luke  vi.  31. 

2.  "  Happy  shall  I  be,  if  there  shall  remain  of  my  seed,  to 
see  the  glory  of  Jerusalem.  The  gates  of  Jerus:dem  shall  be 
built  of  sapphire  and  emerald,  ami  all  the  walls  thereof  round  about 


390  APPENDIX. 

of  precious  stones.  All  its  streets  shall  be  paved  with  white  and 
clean  stones  :  and  Alleluia  shall  be  sun^  in  its  streets.  Blessed 
be  the  Lord  who  hath  exalted  it,  and  may  he  reign  in  it  for  ever 
and  ever,  Amen."     Tobias  xiii.  20,  23. 

"  And  the  building  of  the  wall  thereof  was  of  jasper  stone, 
but  the  city  itself  pure  gold,  like  to  clear  glass.  And  the  foun- 
dation of  the  walls  of  the  city  were  adorned  with  all  manner  of 
precious  stones.  The  first  foundation  was  jasper,  the  second, 
sapphire  ....  the  twelfth,  an  amethyst.  And  the  twelve  gates 
are  twelve  pearls,  one  to  each  :  and  every  several  gate  was  of  one 
several  pearl.  And  the  street  of  the  city  was  pure  gold,  as  it 
were  transparent  glass."     Apocalypse  or  Rev.  xxi.  18,  21. 

3.  **  But  they  that  did  not  receive  the  trials  with  the  fear  of 
the  Lord,  but  uttered  their  impatience,  and  the  reproach  of  their 
murmuring  against  the  Lord,  were  destroyed  by  the  destroyer, 
and  perished  by  serpents."     Judith  viii.  24,  25. 

"  Neither  let  us  tempt  Christ,  as  some  of  them  tempted  and 
perished  by  the  serpents.  Neither  do  you  murmur,  as  some  of 
them  murmured,  and  were  destroyed  by  the  destroyer."  1.  Cor. 
X.9,  10. 

4.  "  The  just  shall  shine,  and  shall  run  to  and  fro  like  sparks 
among  the  reeds."  Wisdom  iii,  7.  "  Then  shall  the  just  shine 
as  the  sun,  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father."     Matt.  xiii.  43. 

5.  "  They  (the  just)  shall  judge  nations  and  rule  over  people, 
and  their  Lord  shall  reign  forever."  Wisdom  iii.  8.  "  Know 
you  not  that  the  Saints  shall  judge  this  world?"     1  Cor.  vi.  2. 

6.  "  He  pleased  God  and  was  beloved,  and  living  among  sin- 
ners he  was  translated."  Wisdom  iv.  10.  "  By  faith,  Henoch 
was  translated  that  he  should  not  see  death,  and  he  was  not  found, 
because  God  had  translated  him.  For  before  his  translation,  he 
had  testimony  that  he  pleased  God."     Heb.  xi.  5. 

7.  "  For  she  (Wisdom)  is  the  brightness  of  Eternal  Light 
and  the  unspotted  mirror  of  God's  Majesty,  and  the  image  of  his 
goodness."  Wisdom  vii.  26.  "  Who  (the  Son  of  God)  being 
the  brightness  of  his  glory  and  the  figure  of  his  substance,  &:<c." 
Heb.  i.  3.     See  also  2  Cor.  iv.  4,  and  Col.  i.  v. 

8.  "  For  who  amonor  men  is  he  that  can  know  the  counsel  of 
God?  or  who  can  think  what  the  will  of  God  is?"     Wisdom  ix. 


APPENDIX.  391 

1:3.     "  For  who  linth  known  the  mind  of  tlie  Lord  ?  or  wlio  hath 
been  his  counsellor?"     Rom.  xi.  34. 

9.  "The  potter,  also,  tempering  soft  earth,  with  labor  fasli- 
ioneth  every  vessel  for  our  service;  and  of  the  same  clay  he 
maketh  such  vessels  as  are  for  clean  uses,  and  likewise  such  as 
serve  to  the  contrary  ;  but  what  is  the  use  of  these  vessels,  the 
potter  is  the  judge."  Wisdoin  xv.  7.  "  Or  hath  not  the  potter 
power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto 
honor,  and  another  unto  dishonor  ?"     Rom.  ix.  21. 

10.  "Or  if  they  admired  their  power  and  their  effects,  let 
them  understand  by  them,  that  he  who  made  them  is  mightier 
than  they  ;  for  by  the  greatness  of  the  beauty  and  the  creature, 
the  Creator  of  them  may  be  seen,  so  as  to  be  known  thereby." 
Wisdom  xiii.  4,  5.  "  For  the  invisible  things  of  him,  from  the 
creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the 
things  that  are  made."     Rom.  i.  20. 

11.  "  And  his  zeal  will  take  armor,  and  he  will  arm  the  crea- 
ture for  the  revenge  of  his  enemies.  He  will  put  on  justice  as  a 
breast-plate,  and  will  take  true  judgment  instead  of  a  helmet. 
He  will  take  equity  for  an  invincible  shield  :  and  he  will  sharpen 
his  severe  wrath  for  a  spear."  Wisdom  v.  18,  21.  "  Therefore 
take  unto  you  the  armor  of  God,  that  you  may  be  able  to  resist 
in  the  evil  day  and  to  stand  in  all  things  perfect.  Stand,  therefore, 
having  your  loins  girt  about  with  truth,  and  having  on  the  breast- 
plate of  justice in  all  things  taking  the  shield  of  faith,  where- 
with you  may  be  able  to  extinguish  all  the  tiery  darts  of  the  mos-t 
wicked  one.  And  take  unto  you  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  (which  is  the  word  of  God.")      Eph.  vi. 

13,  n. 

12.  "  T]#y  that  fear  the  Lord,  will  not  be  incredulous  to  his 
word  ;  and  they  that  love  him  will  keep  his  way.  They  that  fear 
the  Lord  will  seek  after  the  things  that  are  well  pleasing  to  him  ; 
and  they  that  love  him,  shall  be  filled  with  his  law.  .  .  They  that 
fear  the  Lord,  keep  his  commandments,  and  will  have  patience, 
even  until  his  visitation."  Ecclesiasticus  ii.  LS,  21.  "  If  any 
one  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  word."     Jno.  xiv.  2JV 

VS.  "  My  son,  meddle  not  with  many  matters  :  and  if  thou  be 
rich,  thou  sh.ilt   not   be  free  from  sin."      Kcclus.  xi.  H>.     "  For 


39^  APPENDIX. 

they  that  will  become  rich,  fall  into  temptation,  and  into  the  snare 
of  the  devil,  and  into  many  unprofitable  and  hurtful  desires,  which 
drown  men  into  destruction  and  perdition."      1  Tim.  vi.  9. 

14.  "  There  is  one  that  is  enriched  by  living  sparingly,  and 
this  is  the  portioTi  of  his  reward.  In  that  he  saith  :  I  have  found 
me  rest,  and  now  I  will  eat  my  goods  alone  ;  and  he  knoweth  not 
what  time  shall  pass,  and  that  death  approacheth,  and  that  he 
must  leave  all  to  others  and  shall  die."  Ecclus.  xi.  18,  19,  20. 
"  And  I  (the  rich  man  in  the  parable)  will  say  to  my  soul  :  Soul, 
thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,  take  thy  rest;  eat, 
drink,  make  good  cheer.  But  God  said  to  him  :  Thou  fool,  this 
night  do  they  require  thy  soul  of  thee ;  and  whose  shall  those 
things  be  which  thou  hast  provided  1"     Luke  xii.  19,  20. 

15.  If  thou  wilt  keep  the  commandments  and  perform  ac- 
ceptable fidelity  for  ever,  they  shall  preserve  thee."  Ecclus.  xv. 
16.  "  If  thou  wilt  enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments." 
Matthev/  xix.  17. 

16.  The  passage  of  St.  Paul :  "  But  others  were  racked,  not 
accepting  deliverance,  that  they  might  find  a  better  resurrection," 
(Heb.  xi.  35,)  has  been  acknowledged,  even  by  Protestant  com- 
mentators, to  be,  and  evidently  is,  a  reference  to  the  account  of 
the  martyrdom  of  Eleazer  given  in  the  second  book  of  Macca- 
bees, vi.  18-31. 

I  might  cite  many  such  passages,  bu-t  these  will  be  sufficient 
for  my  purpose.  Any  ''  candid  and  unprejudiced  mind,"  at  all 
versed  in  the  rules  of  criticism,  must  see  that  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, the  passages  I  have  brought  forward  are  alluded  to  and 
were  had  in  view.  The  identity  of  thought  and  the  similarity, 
often  striking  coincidence,  of  expression,  absolutely  require  this, 
else  there  is  no  such  thing  as  one  writer's  using  the1tho4aght  and 
expression  of  another.  You  say,  though  you  do  not  maintain 
their  opinion,  that  some  "  learned  men  have  doubted  whether 
some  of  them  existed  at  all  until  some  time  after  the  last  of  the 
Apostles  had  fallen  asleep."  You  yourself  do  not  "  believe  that 
the  Septuagint  contained  them,  at  the  time  of  the  Saviour  and 
the  Apostles."  I  have  not  taken  the  pains  to  see  who  were  those 
learned  men,  or  what  books  they  thought  were  posterior  to  the 
Apostles.     I  have  before  me,  and,  had  your  adopting  their  opin- 


APPENDIX.  393 

ion  rendered  it  necessary,  or  did  the  space  of  this  letter  permit, 
might  produce  testimony  in  abundance  to  prove  those  works  an- 
terior to  the  Saviour.  One  of  the  autliors  you  quote,  Eichhorn, 
and  Jahn,  one  of  the  most  acute  of  German  critics,  declare  that 
Philo  has  drawn  much  from  the  earlier  of  those  works ;  so  much 
so  as  to  have  been  sometimes  deemed  the  author  of  the  book  of 
Wisdom.  To  your  own  "  belief,"  and  if  you  please,  the  authority 
of  Schmidius,  I  will  oppose  the  e.xpress  declaration  of  Origen, 
the  highest  authority  we  can  find  or  could  desire  on  this  question 
of  fact.  In  his  epistle  to  Julius  Africanus,  Dc  Historia  Susan- 
ncc,  he  says  :  "  In  nostro  Greco  sermone  feruntur  in  omni  ecclesia 
Christi,"  that  these  passages  of  Daniel  "  are  found  in  our  Greek 
tongue  throughout  the  entire  church;"  and  further  on  :  "  Apud 
utrumque,  (the  Septuagint  and  Theodotion,)  erat  de  Susanna  ut 
tu  dicisfigmentuin,  etextremac  partes  in  Daniele:"  "  in  both  (the 
Septuagint  and  the  version  of  Theodotion)  are  contained  what 
you  call  the  fiction  of  Susannah,  and  the  last  parts  of  the  book 
of  Daniel ;"  and  immediately  afterwards,  enumerating  what  you 
term  the  additions  to  the  book  of  Esther,  emphatically  declares 
that  though  not  found  in  the  Plebrew  in  his  day,  "  Apud  Septua- 
ginta  autem  et  Theodotionem  ea  sunt;"  "  they  are  found,  never- 
theless, in  the  Septuagint  and  Theodotion."  T  do  not  pretend 
to  say  that  the  Seventy  translated  into  Greek  works  written  in  that 
lano"uage,  as  were  some  of  the  books  in  question,  or  not  com- 
posed until  they  were  in  their  graves.  It  is  generally  allowed 
that  they  translated  at  most  only  the  canonical  works  of  the 
Jews,  shortly  after  that  canon  was  formed.  Other  works,  how- 
ever, existed  in  the  Jewish  nation,  which  were  revered  and  used, 
and  looked  on  as  written  in  Bath  quol,  or  the  second  degree  of 
inspiration,  and  were  added,  if  you  please,  as  an  appendix,  to  the 
collection  of  works  translated  by  the  Seventy;  the  whole  collec- 
tion, containing  both  classc.-^  of  books,  still  retaining,  at  least 
among  Christians,  the  name  of  the  Sii,tu<igint  version.  Not  to 
multiply  quotations  on  this  point,  I  will  merely  bring  forward  the 
testimony  of  Walton,  the  Editor  of  the  Polyglott,  whom  I  respect 
as  the  most  learned  of  Protestants  in  such  matters,  and  eminently 
qualified  by  his  vast  researches  on  the  dilVtrcnt  versions,  to  de- 
cide authoritatively.       His  Protestantism   effectually   prevented 

18 


394  APPENDIX. 

any  partiality  in  favor  of  those  books.  In  his  Prol.  cap.  v.,  he 
says:  "  Libri  itaque  apocryphi,  ut  a  variis  auctoribus  ita  variis 
temporibus  script!  sunt,  quidam  Hebraice,  quidam  Graece ;  et 
licet  apud  Hellenistas  primum  recepti  fuerint,  tempus  tamen 
prtBcise  assignari  non  potest,  quando  cum  reliquis  libris  sacris  in 
unum  volumen  compacti  fuerint.  Hoc  tamen  clarum  est,  a  Ju- 
deis  Hellenistis  cum  reliqua  Scriptura  Ecclesiam  eos  recepisse." 
"  Wherefore  the  Apocryphal  books  were  written  as  well  by  dif- 
ferent authors,  as  at  different  times ;  some  in  Hebrew  and  some 
in  Greek  ;  and  although  they  were  first  received  by  the  Hellenists, 
yet  the  precise  time  cannot  be  assigned  when  they  were  united  in 
one  volume  with  the  other  sacred  works.  This  much,  however, 
is  evident,  that  the  church  received  them  from  the  Hellenist 
Jews." 

Whether  this  transfer  was  made  with  or  without  the  consent 
of  the  Apostles,  may,  I  think,  be  learned  from  a  glance  at  the 
texts  I  have  quoted  above.  What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  1 
There  existed  a  certain  collection  of  books  well  known  to  the 
Apostolic  writers,  and  to  the  faithful  to  whom  their  Epistles 
were  sent,  as  many,  if  not  most  of  them,  were  converts  from 
the  number  of  those  same  Hellenist  Jews.  In  that  collection 
were  comprised  not  only  the  canonical  books  of  the  Jews,  but 
also  those  styled  by  the  Protestants  apocryphal,  The  Apostles 
quote  frequently  by  name  books  of  that  collection,  sometimes 
extract  verbatim  or  with  a  partial  change  of  words  entire  sen- 
tences, but  more  frequently  adopting  and  appealing  as  it  were 
to  some  passage,  incorporate  its  sentiment,  and  more  or  less  of 
its  wording,  into  their  own  train  of  thought.  This  is  most  fre- 
quently done  by  the  Saviour,  as  may  be  seen  by  any  of  my 
readers  who  disdains  not,  in  his  love  of  the  Bible  alone,  to  use 
one  with  accurate  marginal  references.  The  passage  from 
Tobias  is  as  striking  and  as  well  defined  a  quotation  as  any 
other,  and  as  such  must  have  struck  his  hearers.  The  change 
of  the  original  negative  into  the  positive  is  not  so  striking  as 
that  of  Micheas  v.  2  :  "  And  thou  Bethelem  Ephrata,  art  a  little 
one  among  the  thousands  of  Judah,"  quoted  thus  by  St.  Matthew, 
ii.  6 :  "  And  thou,  Bethelem  the  land  of  Judah,  art  not  the  least 
among  the   princes   of  Juda."      Protestants   find  not   the  least 


APPENDIX.  395 

difficulty  in  admitting  such  passages  of  the  New  Testament  to 
contain  allusions  to  the  Old,  as  long  as  their  canonical  books 
alone  are  concerned  ;  but  when  a  passage  of  the  works  wliose 
inspiration  they  deny  is  laid  before  them,  the  thought  and  tuur- 
nure  of  expression  of  which  an  Apostle  has  adopted  into  his  own 
Epistle,  so  evidently  as  would  now-a-days  suffice  to  convict  a 
poet  of  plagiary,  oh  !  then  that  cannot  be  a  quotation.  Truly, 
Rev.  Sir,  to  use  your  own  words:  "Light  is  death  to  their 
cause  " 

I  have  thus,  Rev.  Sir,  examined  your  first  argument.  You 
state  that  at  the  Saviour's  time  the  Jews  had  a  national  canon, 
in  which  the  works  you  impugn  were  not  contained.  I  am  wil- 
ling to  admit  this  in  regard  to  all  the  books  except  Baruch  with 
the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah,  the  addition  to  the  Book  of  Esther,  and 
the  parts  of  Daniel  which  you  style  the  Story  of  Susannah,  the 
Story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  and  the  Song  of  the  three  Children. 
I  know  that  they  had  the  books,  of  which  these  were  considered 
parts  :  it  is  allowed  that  those  parts  once  existed  in  the  original 
language  of  those  books,  and  that  at  the  time  of  Origen  they  no 
longer  existed  in  those  languages.  Before  I  admit  that  they  per- 
ished in  those  languages,  not  after,  but  before  the  time  of  the  Sa- 
viour, I  must  have  proof  positive,  which  I  do  not  recollect  having 
ever  met,  and  I  am  of  opinion,  does  not  exist.  However,  I  waived 
all  controversy  on  this  point,  allowing  your  argument  all  the  force 
it  could  receive  from  the  fact,  did  it  take  place. 

You  then  said  that  the  Jews  excluded  them  from  their  canon 
under  such  circumstances  as,  were  they  in  reality  inspired,  to  ren- 
der themselves  "guilty  of  an  outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the  sacred 
oracles."  This  was  a  mere  assumption  unsupported  by  any  proof 
It  could  not  be  the  case,  unless  there  existed  a  tribunal  in  their 
nation  capable  of  adding  to  the  canon  already  established  ;  and 
the  books  were  laid  before  this  tribunal.  You  seem  to  think 
that  the  Jewish  canon  was  established  by  Divine  authority.  This 
would  at  once  take  off  all  responsibility  from  the  Jewish  nation, 
and  defeat  your  oun  argument.  1  have  not  taken  advantage  of 
it,  however  ;  as  the  Jews  themselves  attribute  the  formation  of 
their  canon,  not  to  an  immediate  Revelation  of  (jii)d,  but  to  their 
Chcneseth  Ghedolah,  or  Great  Synagogue.     I,  who  see  therein  a 


396  APPENDIX. 

general  Council  of  the  Church  in  the  Old  Law,  claiming  and  ex- 
ercising by  the  authority  of  God  the  power  of  teaching  the  faith- 
ful what  were  thei  nspired  works,  will  readily  admit  its  Divine  au- 
thority, as  far  as  the  decree  can  be  evidently  shown  to  have  gone, 
that  is,  that  tliose  books  were  inspired.  It  cannot  be  proved  that 
it  determined  any  thing  in  regard  to  books  either  lost,  as  proba- 
bly many  were,  or  yet  unwritten,  or  not  in  their  possession.  It 
would  seem  that  it  was  with  great  difficulty  they  obtained  even 
those  whose  inspiration  they  testified  to.  I  question  much  wheth- 
er in  this  view  you  will  admit  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Jewish 
Canon  ;  and  yet  you  say  the  Saviour  did.  History  informs  us 
that  this  Great  Synagogue  ended,  and  was  not  revived  or  suc- 
ceeded by  any  other  of  equal  authority,  to  act  on  the  canon  of 
Scripture.  Hence,  even  were  there  noonday  evidence  of  the  in- 
spiration of  those  books,  the  Jews  could  not,  at  least  according 
to  their  own  writers,  place  them  in  the  Canon.  It  was  not  neces- 
sary that  such  full  evidence  should  exist.  We  have  no  proof  that 
it  did  exist ;  though  that  some  evidence  was  in  possession  of  the 
Jews,  may  be  gathered  from  the  facts  that,  as  Walton  says,  they 
were  united  in  the  same  volume,  and  that  the  Rabbins  hold  some 
of  them  as  inferiorly  inspired.  At  all  events  it  is  evident  the 
Jews  were  not  "guilty  of  an  outrageous  fraud  in  regard  to  the 
Sacred  Oracles,"  in  not  inserting  those  works,  even  though  they 
be  inspired,  in  their  national  canon. 

Your  next  assertions  were  that "  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles 
approved  of  the  Jewish  Canon,  whatever  it  was,  and  appealed  to 
it  as  possessing  Divine  authority."  Had  they  gone  no  farther, 
this  would  not  have  militated  against  us.  I  might  on  the  con- 
trary appeal  to  it  as  a  positive  Divine  sanction  of  the  fourth 
method  of  my  preceding  letter.  Still  you  have  not  in  their 
words  the  least  support  for  your  assertions.  The  circumstances 
from  which  you  would  infer  it,  exist  simply  in  your  own  ardent 
imagination,  and  are  not  such  as  historical  evidence  sustains. 

These  you  follow  up  with  another  statement  equally  unsup- 
ported by  their  words  or  the  facts  of  the  case  ;  that  *'  the  Saviour 
and  his  Apostles  evidently  treated  the  Jewish  Canon  as  complete, 
and  containing  the  whole  of  God's  revelation  as  far  as  it  was  then 
made."    For  this,  precisely,  you  offer  no  proof.     You  view  it  as 


APPENDIX.  397 

the  evident  consequence  of  the  other  items  of  argument.  They 
fall  to  the  ground,  and  this  must  fall  with  them. 

You  think  that  had  the  Jews  been  guilty  of  the  heinous  crime 
with  which,  in  case  these  books  are  inspired,  you  tax  them,  the 
Saviour  and  his  Apostles  were  bound  to  denounce  this  particu- 
lar offence.  I  think  it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  condemn 
them  in  general,  and  to  ^taie  some  of  their  errors,  without  being 
bound  to  go  over  the  whole  list.  He  proposed  the  truth  of 
Christianity  in  general,  for  their  acceptance.  If  they  embraced 
this,  the  acceptance  of  those  books  would  have  followed,  as  I  will 
show  it  did  follow  for  the  early  Christians.  We  know  that,  as  a 
people,  they  '  received  him  not.'  He  came  not  to  reform  the 
Jewish  Relicrion,  but  to  establish  another  ;  that  whicli  it  forcshad- 
owed.  He  might,  as  he  did,  condemn  particular  errors  and 
abuses,  but  the  end,  the  grand  aim  of  his  preaching,  was  to  bring 
them  to  believe  in  Him,  and  all  those  things  which  He  taught 
his  Apostles  personally  for  forty  days  after  his  resurrection,  or 
by  the  Spirit  of  truth  afterwards,  concerning  his  Church,  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  He  never  declared  that  he  would,  and  we  see 
no  reason  why  he  should,  enumerate  and  condemn  every  abuse, 
or  that  he  was  bound  to  single  out  this  particular  error.  We 
have  two  parallel  cases :  that  of  the  Samaritans,  whose  schism 
or  error  he  condemned  in  John  iv.  22,  and  of  the  Sadducees  whom 
both  He  and  St.  Paul  condemned.  Both  were  heinously  guilty 
of  rejecting  inspired  writings  as  mere  human  productions,  and 
yet  we  have  no  evidence  that  they  charged  them  with  this  par- 
ticular error  or  sin.  Why  then  bind  them  to  do  so  in  regard  to 
the  Pharisees? 

You  finally  state  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  did  nothing  in 
regard  to  those  books  :  and  this  you  sustain  in  your  first  argu- 
ment by  saying  there  is  not  in  the  New  Testament  any  record  of 
the  fact ;  and  in  your  second,  by  endeavoring  to  show  that  the 
Christians  of  the  first  four  centuries  acted  in  such  a  manner  in 
regard  to  those  books,  as  they  certainly  would  not  have  done  if 
the  Saviour  or  his  Apostles  had  given  any  testimony  of  their  insj)i- 

ration. 

I  might  answer,  that  though  the  Saviour  did  n(»t  establish  evi- 
dently the  inspiration  of  those  books  then,  He  could  have  done 


398  APPENDIX. 

it  after  four  centuries  with  equal  facility,  either  through  such  a 
body  of  individuals  as  I  have  often  referred  to,  or  by  any  other 
means  he  thought  proper  to  use.  The  only  questions  for  us 
would  be.  Did  he  adopt  those  means  '?  What  are  the  books  the 
inspiration  of  which  is  thus  declared  ? 

But  I  meet  your  assertion  directly.  In  my  next,  I  will  show 
that  the  early  Christians  acted  in  regard  to  these  books  in  such 
a  manner  as  they  would  not  have  done  unless  they  had  been  re- 
ceived from  the  Saviour  or  the  Apostles  as  inspired.  We  find 
nothing  in  the  gospels  or  epistles  to  show  that  they  do  or  must 
contain  all  that  the  Saviour  or  Apostles  taught  or  did.  St  Paul 
taught  many  things  by  word,  as  we  learn  from  himself  The 
Saviour's  discourse  to  the  disciples  on  the  road  to  Emmaus,  and 
a  full  account  of  all  his  conversations  with  the  apostles  after  his 
resurrection,  would  be  very  valuable.  Among  these  last  you 
might,  reverend  sir,  find  something  bearing  on  the  number  of  in- 
spired books.  However,  until  you  have  all  he  said  to  the  Jews 
and  his  Apostles,  or  an  assurance  from  Him  or  them  that  this 
was  not  contained  among  the  things  omitted,  venture  not  to  as- 
sert that  because  He  did  not,  as  far  as  you  can  learn,  say  it  on 
certain  occasions  to  certain  persons,  he  never  said  it  to  any  one 
at  all.  That  the  Saviour  and  Apostles  did  do  something  in  re- 
gard to  those  books,  I  opine,  is  evident  from  the  texts  I  have 
quoted  ;  else  plagiary  among  authors  is  an  imaginary  crime. 
The  identity  of  thought  and  the  similarity,  sometimes  copied 
turn  of  expression,  prove  this  evidently.  The  circumstances 
of  the  case  support  it.  According  to  Walton,  the  collection 
containing  these,  with  the  canonical  books  of  the  Jews,  was  in  the 
hands  both  of  the  writers  and  those  who  read  their  books.  The 
subjects  were  the  same.  In  their  writings  they  avowedly  quote, 
adopt,  and  allude  to  the  language  and  thoughts  of  that  collection 
Those  instances  show  that  such  allusions  were  made,  not  only  to 
the  canonical  works,  but  also  to  those  you  deem  uninspired.  I 
believe  with  Walton,  that  the  Septuaginf,  as  that  collection  was 
called,  contained  those  books  before  the  coming  of  the  Saviour^ 
You  think  this,  if  true,  strengthens  your  argument.  I  think  not. 
If  those  books  thus  united  were  uninspired,  the  Saviour  and  the 
apostles  were  certainly  bound  positively  to  reject 'them,  and  not  to 


APPENDIX.  399 

suffer  the  unnatural  union  to  pass  into  the  church.  Now  I  shall 
show,  that  as  far  hack  as  the  remnants  of  those  early  ages  will 
carry  us,  we  find  Christians  uniting  them  both  in  the  Septuagint, 
and  revering  both  as  divinely  inspired.  This  very  omission  of 
excluding  them,  taken  especially  with  the  decided  belief  of  the 
early  Christians,  is  a  strong  proof  in  favor  of  the  inspiration  of 
those  books.  But  you  do  not  "  believe  that  the  Septuagint  at 
the  Saviour's  time  contained  the  Apocrypha."  Reverend  Sir,  a 
more  disastrous  avowal  you  could  not  have  made.  The  union 
then  took  place  in  the  church  ;  necessarily  under  the  eyes  and 
with  the  approbation  of  the  Apostles  and  their  immediate,  most 
faithful  disciples.  These  books  are  quoted  and  referred  to  as 
divinely  inspired  Scripture.  I  could  not  desire  a  stronger  case. 
Before  the  Apostles,  the  contested  books  were  not  inserted.  Im- 
mediately afterwards  we  find  them  already  inserted.  A  change 
has  taken  place.  It  could  only  be  effected  by,  it  can  only  be  at- 
tributed to,  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles.  Therefore  they  did 
leave  works  to  the  Christian  world  as  inspired, 
I  remain  Rev.  Sir,  yours,  &lc. 

A.  P.  F. 


LETTER  III. 

To  the  Rev.  James  H.  Thorxwell,  Professor  of  the  Evidences  of  Chris- 

tianitij,  ^-c. 

Rev.  Sir, — We  are  now  arrived  at  the  most  important  point 
in  the  examination  of  the  Historical  Evidences  in  favor  of  those 
books,  for  revering  which  as  "  Sacred  and  Canonical,"  you 
charcre  the  Catholic  church  with  blasphemously  adding  to  the 
word  of  God. 

Before  I  enter  on  the  task  of  laying  before  you  the  evidence 
of  that  character  in  favor  of  the  truth  of  the  decree  passed  by 
the  Council  of  Trent,  let  me  again  urge  on  you  the  absolute  ne- 
cessity of  admitting  tiic  divine  authority  on  which  the  church 
based  it;  and  its  consequent  truth.  By  denying  that  authority, 
you  at  once  overthrow  the  only  means  whereby  the  ovcrwholm- 
inof  majority  of  Christians  can  learn  with  certainty,  and  on  which 
they  can  be  required  to  believe  unhesitatingly,  the  inspiration  of 


400  APPENDIX. 

the  Scriptural  books.  Even  did  there  exist  no  historical  testi- 
mony whatever  to  prove  the  truth  set  forth  in  that  decree,  as 
long  as  we  have  reasons  for  admitting,  and  are  forced  by  neces- 
sity to  admit,  the  authority  of  the  tribunal  from  which  it  ema- 
nates, the  inspiration  of  those  books  is  proved  to  our  understand- 
ing by  an  a  priori  argument  of  the  strongest  character. 

In  point  of  fact,  millions  on  millions  of  Christians  in  every 
age  have  believed,  and  must  still  hold,  the  Scriptures  to  be  divine- 
ly inspired,  simply  on  authority.     How  many  are  there,  think  you, 
even  among  Protestants  in   South  Carolina,  who  believe  it;  not 
because  their  parents  or   instructors  have   so  taught  them ;  not 
because  it  is  the  general  belief  of  persons  whom  they  esteem,  of 
the  community  of  which  they  are  members,  of  the  denomination 
to  which  they  are  attached  ;  nor  yet  because  they  have  read  some 
dissertation  like  yours,  wherein  a  few  names  are  quoted,  some 
books   in  Latin  or  German  referred  to,  some  extracts  inserted, 
and  then  a  sweeping  conclusion  drawn,  set  off  with  a  tirade  of 
hard  names  and  denunciations,  but  scarcely  warranted  by  the  pre- 
mises and  wholly  unsupported  by  facts  ;  how  many,  I  ask,  are 
there  even  among  Protestants,  who  believe  the  Scriptures  to  be 
inspired,  not  on  motives  like  these,  but  because  clear  and  cogent 
and  really  valid  arguments  have  been  submitted  to  their  under- 
standings ?     I  have  amused  myself  at  times  by  asking  those  who 
assail  me  with  texts  against  what  they  believe  are  our  doctrines, 
to  prove  the  books  they   quote  from  to   be  inspired,  and  I  very 
rarely  found  any  one  who  knew  even  how  to  set  about  the  task. 
They  believed  them  to  be  inspired,  not  because  any  valid  argu- 
ment from  historical  or  internal  evidence  had  been   laid  before 
them,  but  because  they  had  been  brought  up   and  led  by  educa- 
tion  and  authority  to  do  so.     Whether  by  acting  thus,  notwith- 
standing the   want  of  the  aforesaid   arguments,  they  followed  a 
course  that  was  not  *'  righteous  and  holy"  and  "  ran  the  risk  of 
everlasting  damnation,''  I  leave  you.  Rev.  Sir,  to  decide.     To 
me  such  cases  are  but  particular  examples  of  a  general   truth 
taught  alike  by  common  sense  and  experience  :  that  not  one  in 
ten  thousand  Christians  has  the  time,  the  means  and  the  ability 
to  qualify  himself  properly  for  that  arduous  research,  and  to  pros- 
ecute the  investigation  of  that  mass  of  evidence,  with  success. 


APPENDIX.  101 

Any  system  which  would  require  all  to  do  so,  must  be  absurd, 
for  it  supposes  that  possible  which  is  morally  impossible  ;  and 
false,  because  it  contradicts  the  intinitc  wisdom  of  God,  as  dis- 
played in  his  apportionment  of  men  in  the  various  conditions  of 
life.  Both  among  Catholics  and  Protestants  there  ever  will  be, 
there /;/M5^  be,  many  to  whose  understandings  no  valid  arguments 
from  reason  or  from  liistorical  evidence  for  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scripture,  will  ever  be  submitted — whose  condition  in  life  pro- 
hibits it.  Some  mdiy  think  they  have  them,  whose  reasons  never- 
theless for  belief  are  any  thing  but  valid,  and  would  only  provoke 
a  smile  from  those  who  are  qualified  to  estimate  their  value.  If 
God  requires  those  millions  to  believe  that  iiu>piraiion  at  all.  He 
requires  them  to  believe  it  on  authority  ;  for  in  no  other  manner 
can  they  learn  it.  And  unless  his  works  be  imperfect,  He  has 
given  an  authority  to  teach  them  this  doctrine,  whose  teaching 
constitutes  the  necessary,  clear,  cogent  and  valid  argument  which 
is  to  be  laid  before  their  understandings.  Now  in  the  Protest- 
ant system,  there  is  no  such  authority  to  teach  this  truth,  none 
which  any  one  is  bound  to  hear,  or  at  least  none  which  mav  not 
lead  to  error,  and  none  therefore  whose  teaching  necessarily 
gives  truth  with  unerring  accuracy,  and  leaves  no  room  for  rea- 
sonable doubt  and  hesitation.  In  this  system  God  would  not 
have  provided  any  means  whereby  those  can  learn  certainly  and 
unerringly  the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture,  who  are,  by  their 
circumstances,  unavoidably  restricted  to  the  use  of  authority 
alone  on  this  question.  In  the  Catholic  system,  on  the  contrary, 
this  hiatus  in  the  works  of  God  does  not  exist.  An  anthoritv  is 
established  by  Him  to  teach  this  truth,  and  in  fulfilling  that  com- 
mission, is  guarded  by  his  Omnipotence  from  falling  into  error. 
The  evidence  of  the  commission  itself  and  of  the  L^uaranty  from 
error,  is  before  the  world.  Christians  are  required  to  believe  the 
Scriptures  to  be  inspired  on  that  authority  ;  and  in  believing, 
they  have  an  assurance  from  Divine  Truth  and  Oninii)otcnce  that 
they  err  not.  Historical  evidence  may  or  may  n  )t  exist  to 
corroborate  the  declaration  of  that  authority.  Those  who  believe 
may  or  may  not  possess  it.  To  them  it  is  a  secondary  collateral 
proof,  placing  the  doctrine,  not  in  a  firmer  position,  but,  if  you 
will,  in  a  stronger  light.      A  practical  illustration  adds  nothing  to 


402  APPENDIX. 

the  certainty  of  a  theorem  established  by  mathematical  demon- 
stration. If  this  collateral  testimony  were  not  in  the  possession 
of  the  person  whose  belief  is  required,  or  even  were  it  not  in  ex- 
istence, the  truth  of  the  doctrine  taught  would  remain  unchanged 
and  the  obligation  of  believing  it  equally  strong. 

Nay  more,  a  person  is  still  bound  to  believe,  even  when  seem- 
ing arguments  which  he  cannot  refute  are  urged  to  the  contrary. 
Common  sense  tells  him  that  what  is  known  and  proved  to  be 
true  by  one  method  of  demonstration,  cannot  be  shown  to  be  re- 
ally false  by  another  :  that  truth  is  never  opposed  to  truth.  Ex- 
perience would  tell  him  that  there  is  no  doctrine  against  which 
words  cannot  be  arrayed.  He  may  find  objections,  the  fallacy 
or  falsehood  of  which  he  cannot  point  out,  brought  against  the  in- 
spiration of  any  or  of  all  the  books  so  declared  to  be  inspired. 
But  he  knows  that  the  authority  which  proclaims  them  inspired, 
teaches  truth;  and  that  whatever  contradicts  truth  must  be  er- 
roneous. He  is  bound  still  to  believe.  Men  act  thus  every  day 
in  matters  of  life  ;  and  they  are  forced  to  carry  out  the  principles 
also  in  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Let  me  illustrate  it  by  an  ex- 
ample. 

You  hold.  Rev.  Sir,  that  God  has  declared  and  requires  every 
one,  even  the  unlettered  negro,  to  believe  unhesitatingly  that 
there  are  three  Divine  Persons  in  one  God.  Now  the  negro,  de- 
barred by  law  from  learning  to  read,  cannot  peruse  his  Bible  ;  can- 
not (leaving  aside  the  question  of  inspiration)  decide  whether 
certain  texts  (among  them  the  strongest,  perhaps  the  only  deci- 
sive one  on  the  Trinity)  be  interpolations,  as  most  Protestant 
critics  have  determined  that  of  I  John  v.  7  to  be  ;  cannot  col- 
late all  the  texts  on  the  subject,  and  pronounce  unerringly  that  in 
them  God  has  made  such  a  declaration.  He  must  learn  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  from  authority.  He  is  bound  to  believe  it 
unhesitatingly,  because  God,  who  cannot  declare  an  untruth,  has 
declared  it,  and  the  Catholic  would  add,  common  sense  re- 
quires, because  the  authority  which  communicates  to  him  that 
declaration  of  God  is  prevented  by  Divine  Omnipotence  from 
teaching  that  He  declared  what  in  fact  He  did  not.  An  Unita- 
rian might  say  to  the  negro  :  "  You  are  told  that  the  Father  is 
distinct  from  the  Son,   and  the  Holy  Ghost  from  both  ;   they  are 


APPENDIX.  403 

three  distinct  Persons.  Now,  if  the  Father  is  God,  and  the  Son 
is  God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  they  must,  tlierefore  be  three 
Gods  and  not  one  God,  and  to  say  that  tliree  distinct  Persons 
form  only  one  God,  is  as  absurd  as  to  say  that  three  men  form 
one  individual.  God  could  not  have  said  so,  for  he  cannot  say 
any  thing  absurd,  and  any  body  that  tells  you  He  did  say  so,  leads 
you  into  an  error."  Even  a  negro  would  see  the  force  of  this 
objection.  Can  he  lay  bare  the  sophism  ?  In  the  Catholic  sys- 
tem his  answer  would  be  clear  and  satisfactory.  **  My  mind  is 
feeble,  I  cannot  by  reasoning  reply  to  what  you  say  ;  but  here  is 
a  tribunal  which  God  has  appointed  to  teach  me  what  doctrines 
he  has  declared,  and  which  He  will  not  permit  to  mistake. 
That  tribunal  tells  me  that  He  has  declared  this  doctrine,  and 
when  He  declares  it,  it  must  be  true  and  not  absurd,  and  there- 
fore I  believe  it,  though  I  cannot  refute  your  arguments."  If,  on 
the  Protestant  principle,  he  believed  that  the  authority  which  had 
taught  him  the  Trinity  could  propose  doctrines  which  were  false, 
and  could  assert  that  God  had  taught  what  in  truth  he  did  not 
teach,  I  confess  that  I  do  not  sec  what  answer  the  neo-ro  could 
make,  or  how  he  could  reasonabbj  continue  in  an  unhesitatinar 
belief  of  the  Trinity. 

I  opine,  too,  that  even  the  most  learned  theologian  would  find 
himself  in  the  same  predicament.  It  would  puzzle  him  to  explain 
how  three  Divine  Persons,  each  of  them  God,  can  only  constitute 
one  God  ;  while  three  human  persons  must  constitute,  not  one,  but 
three  beings.  He  can  only  seek  to  establish  the  fact,  that  God 
did  declare  this  to  be  the  case.  Now  1  certainly  believe  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  as  firmly  as  I  do  my  own  existence.  But  could 
I  leave  aside  the  authority  of  the  Catholic  church,  could  I  believe 
that  it  was  possible  for  her  to  declare  that  God  has  revealed  a  doc- 
trine which  he  has  not,  I,  for  one,  would  not  admit  this  mystery  ; 
for  the  simple  reason  that,  except  through  her,  I  have  no  positive 
assurance  that  it  is  one  of  the  doctrines  revealed  by  Almighty  God. 
The  strongest  text,  as  I  said  above,  is  rejected  by  most  Protestant 
critics  as  supposititious.  Were  it  not,  it  is  susceptible  of  another 
and  very  different  sense.  So  too  are  all  the  other  texts  urged  in 
favor  of  this  dogma.  The  Unitarians  strongly  and  earnestly  urge 
these  views.     And  in  perusing  several  Protestant  treatises  on  the 


404  APPENDIX. 

subject,  I  have  not  met  a  Trinitarian  who,  in  my  opinion  at  least, 
could,  without  some  one-sided  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  church 
to  decide  the  question,  overthrow  their  positions,  or  make  out 
for  himself  more  than  a  plausible,  perliaps  a  probable  case.  De- 
prived of  the  authoritative  teaching  of  the  Catholic  church,  I 
would  not,  on  mere  plausible  or  probable  evidence,  yield  an  un- 
hesitating belief  in  so  astounding  a  mystery  as  this,  or  expose  my- 
self to  the  danger  of  Idolatry  by  adoring  as  God  one  who  might 
perhaps  be  after  all  a  mere  creature.  I  thank  Heaven  I  am  not  - 
left  in  this  perplexity  or  unbelief  Though  I  cannot  refute  meta- 
physically all  the  metaphysical  objections  against  the  august  mys- 
tery of  the  Trinity,  though  my  researches  of  mere  historical  tes- 
timony or  simple  examination  of  the  Scripture  would  not  lead  me 
to  the  certain  and  evident  conclusion  that  God  did  reveal  it,  I 
have  his  Revelation  unerringly  preserved  by  those  the  Saviour 
sent  to  teach  all  that  He  had  taught,  even  as  He  was  sent  by  the 
Father.  Them  I  hearts  I  would  hear  Him.  On  His  authority, 
and  their  testimony,  I  believe  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  firmly 
and  unhesitatingly  despite  of  unsolved  sophisms,  and  bend  the 
knee  to  adore  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Eternal  God,  no  dark  horrific 
doubt  flashing  the  while  through  my  mind,  that  perhaps  He  is 
but  a  creature,  and  I  am  staining  my  soul  with  the  damning  sin 
of  Idolatry. 

To  apply  this  to  the  subject  of  my  letter,  if  Almighty  God 
has  been  pleased  to  establish  a  tribunal,  with  authority  to  declare 
unerringly,  in  His  name,  what  books  are  sacred  and  canonical, 
we  are  bound  to  receive  unhesitatingly,  as  the  word  of  God,  the 
books  designated  as  such  by  that  tribunal,  even  though  we  pos- 
sess not  collateral  proof  from  historical  or  intrinsic  evidence  to 
sustain  it.  We  would  be  equally  bound  to  receive  them,  did  no 
historical  evidence  whatever  exist;  nay,  even  if  objections,  which 
we  have  not  the  means  of  solving,  could  be  urged  against  the 
inspiration  of  some  or  of  all  of  those  books. 

I  have  shown  in  my  first  letter  that  every  Christian  at  least 
must  admit  that  God  did  establish  such  a  tribunal.  When  that 
is  established,  collateral  testimony  is  of  secondary  importance. 
Had  the  flood  of  time  swept  away  every  record  of  the  early  church, 
as  it  has  swept  away  many,  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent 
would  still  stand. 


APPENDIX.  406 

I  have  made  these  prefatory,  perhaps  discursive  remarks,  that 
our  readers  may  see  the  nature,  the  bearing,  and  the  value  of 
historical  testimony  in  favor  of  the  inspiration  of  ilie  books  which 
Catholics  admit  as  inspired,  and  you  reject  as  of  no  more  author- 
ity than  Seneca's  Letters,  or  Tully's  Offices. 

I  will  now  proceed  to  redeem  the  promise  made  towards  the 
close  of  my  last  letter,  and  to  show  that  the  early  Christians  acted 
in  such  a  manner  in  regard  to  those  books  and  parts  of  books, 
as  they  would  not  have  done,  unless  the  Saviour  and  his  Apos- 
tles had  left  them  to  the  early  church  as  inspired.  Here,  Rev. 
Sir,  we  are  fairly  at  variance.  I  will  give  your  second  argument 
in  your  own  words  : — 

2.  "  If  it  should  be  pretended  that  Christ  did  give  his  Apos- 
tles authority  to  receive  these  books,  though  no  record  was  made 
of  the  fact,  we  ask  how  it  comes  to  pass — and  we  mention  this 
as  our  second  argument  aorainst  them — that  for  four  centuries 
the  unbroken  testimony  of  the  Christian  church  is  against  their 
inspiration  1  They  are  not  included  in  the  catalogues  given  by 
Melito,  *  Bishop  of  Sardis,  who  flourished  in  the  second  cen- 
tury— of  Origen,  t  Athanasius,  |  Hilary,  §  Cyril  of  Jerusa- 
lem, II  Epiphanias,  tf  Gregory  Nazianzen,  **  Ruffinus  ft  and 
others;  neither  are  they  mentioned  among  the  canonical 
books  recognized  by  the  Council  of  Laodicea.  As  a  sample  of 
the  testimonies  referred  to  in  the  margin,  we  will  give  a  few 
passages  from  Jerome,  the  author  of  the  authentic  version  com- 
monly called  the  Vulgate.  In  the  preface  concerning  all  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  which  he  prefixed  to  his  Latin 
translation  of  Samuel  and  Kings,  after  having  given  us  the  Jew- 
ish canon,  he  says  :  '  Hie  prologus  scripturarum,  quasi  Galealuin 
principium  omnibus  libris  quos  de  Hebraeo  vertimus  in  Latinum 
convenire  potest:  ut  scire  valeamus  quicqnid  extra  hos  est  inter 
Apocrypha  esse  ponendum.'  'Therefore,'  he  adds,  *  Wisdom, 
which  is  vulgarly  attributed  to  Solomon,  and  the  book  of  Jesus 
the  Son  of  Sirach,  and  Judith,  Tobias,  and   Pastor,  are  not  in 


»  Euseb.  lib.  iv.  c.  26.  t  Expos.  Psal.  i.  0pp.  torn.  ii.  Euscb  vi.  25. 

\  Pasch.  Epist.  §  Prologr.  in  Psalmos.         ||  4lh  Cato.  E.xer. 

IT  Haeres   i.  6.  ••  Can.  33.  +t  Exposit.  ad  synib.  npost. 


406  APPENDIX. 

the  canon.'  His  testimony  in  relation  to  the  Maccabees,  is 
equally  decided.  In  the  prologue  to  his  Commentary  on  Jere- 
miah, he  declines  explaining  the  book  of  Baruch,  which  in  the 
edition  of  the  LXX  is  commonly  joined  with  it,  because  the  Jews 
rejected  it  from  the  canon,  and  he  of  course  knew  no  authority 
for  inserting  it.  In  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  Daniel,  he 
assures  us  that  the  stori/  of  Susannah,  the  song  of  the  Three 
Children,  and  the  fables  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  are  not  only 
not  in  the  Jewish  copies,  but  had  exposed  Christians  to  ridicule 
for  the  respect  which  they  paid  to  them !  In  his  preface  to  To- 
hit  and  Judith  he  pronounces  them  Apocryphal ! 

''Here,  then,  about  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  we  find 
no  remnant  of  any  unwritten  tradition  from  Christ  and  his  Apos- 
tles authorizing  the  church  to  receive  these  books.  The  early 
fathers  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Jews,  and  unanimously 
concurred  in  receiving  no  other  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  as 
inspired,  but  that  which  came  down  to  them  through  the  Jewish 
church.  In  this  opinion  learned  men  in  every  age  have  concur- 
red up  to  the  very  meeting  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  We  refer 
to  such  men  as  Cardinal  Ximenes,  Ludovicus  Vives,  the  accom- 
plished Erasmus  and  Cardinal  Cajetan.  How  could  there  have 
been  such  a  general  concurrence  in  an  error  so  deplorable,  if 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  had  ever  treated  these  books  as  the  lively 
Oracles  of  God!  Surely  there  would  have  been  some  record, 
some  hint  of  a  fact  so  remarkable.  We  ask  the  Romanist  to  re- 
concile the  testimonies  of  the  Fathers  with  the  decree  of  Trent. 
In  the  language  of  Bishop  Burnet :  "  Here  we  have  four  centu- 
ries clear  for  our  canon  in  exclusion  of  all  additions.  It  were 
easy  to  carry  this  much  further  down,  and  to  show  that  these 
books  (the  Apocrypha)  were  never  by  any  express  definition  re- 
ceived into  the  canon  till  it  was  done  at  Trent,  and  that  in  all 
acres  of  the  church,  even  after  they  came  to  be  much  esteemed, 
there  were  divers  writers,  and  those  generally  the  most  learned  of 
their  time,  who  denied  them  to  be  a  part  of  the  canon.'  " 

This,  Rev.  Sir,  might  strike  a  reader  altogether  unacquaint- 
ed with  those  early  times,  as  very  forcible,  and  nearly  if  not 
quite  "  irresistible."  A  second  perusal  of  your  essay  would 
show  him,  that  much  as  you  seem  to  have  kept  the  matter  out  of 


APPENDIX.  407 

sight,  even  in  those  first  four  ages  there  were  at  least  two  sides 
to  the  question,  whereas  your  argument  is  grounded  on  the  asser- 
tion that  the  unbroken  testimony  of  the  church  during  all  this 
time  was  against  the  inspiration  of  those  books.  St.  Jerome, 
you  state,  informs  us  that  the  Christians  were  exposed  to  ridicule 
from  the  Jews  for  the  respect  in  which  they  held  one  part  of  what 
your  arguments  affirm  uninspired  writings.  Now,  St.  Jerome 
wrote  before  the  year  400,  and  that  respect  might,  for  aught  you 
say,  be  some  remnant  of  a  tradition  from  the  Apostles  regarding 
their  inspiration.  Those  decisions,  too,  which  you  spoke  of, 
made  in  their  favour  by  bodies  of  which  St.  Augustine  was  a 
member,  occurred  also  before  the  year  400.  Might  they  not  be 
other  remnants?  But,  Rev.  Sir,  to  one  who  is  acquainted  with 
those  early  days  of  the  church,  it  must  be  a  matter  of  astonish- 
ment, how,  if  you  had  read  five  authors  of  those  times,  (and  if 
you  had  not,  you  should  not  make  your  second  argument  so 
boldly,)  you  could  assert  unqualifiedly  and  emphatically  "  that  for 
four  centuries  the  unbroken  testimony  of  the  Christian  church  is 
against  their  inspiration." 

I  assert  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  manner  in  which  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  first  four  centuries  acted  in  regard  to  those  writings, 
shows  that  they  were  left  to  them  by  the  Apostles  as  inspired.  I 
presume  you  will  admit  that  while  these  early  Christians  were 
tried  in  the  furnace  of  persecution,  and  laid  down  their  lives  by 
thousands  rather  than  swerve  one  jot  or  tittle  from  the  truth 
handed  down  to  them,  they  would  not  throughout  the  world 
unite  in  **  blasphemously  adding  to  the  word  of  God."  If  they 
united  in  receiving  those  works  as  inspired,  then  is  our  cause 
fully  sustained  ;  for  they  would  not  have  thus  united  unless  they 
had  been  taught  by  the  Apostles  that  those  books  formed  part  of 
the  word  of  God.  You  have  appealed  to  the  testimony  of  the 
church  for  the  first  four  centuries.  You  shall  have  it.  Would 
that  you  may  abide  by  its  award. 

In  the  first  place,  all  those  books  oi'  parts  of  books  irrre  con- 
tained in  the  Old  Testament  as  used  by  the  early  Christians  in  the 
infancy  of  the  Cliurch.  That  they  all  existed  at  the  time  of  St. 
Jerome,  and  at  his  day  formed  part  of  the  Old  Testament,  can- 
not be  denied.     At  the  proper  place,  I  will  speak  of  his  views*  on 


408  '  APPENDIX. 

their  inspiration.  At  present  let  us  investigate  facts.  The  Lat« 
in  Vulgate  as  used  then  contained  them.  Now,  Rev.  Sir,  if 
it  be  made  evident  that  those  works  were  received  universally 
and  from  the  earliest  day  into  the  body  of  the  Old  Testament, 
your  assertion  that  there  is  no  remnant  of  any  tradition,  does  not 
coincide  with  the  fact.  At  what  time  were  those  works  joined 
to  the  canonical  works  of  the  synagogue  ?  All  the  works,  ex- 
cept perhaps  Wisdom  and  the  second  book  of  Maccabees,  were 
originally  written  in  Hebrew  or  Chaldaic ;  as  their  frequent  Semi- 
tic idioms  evidently  show.  St.  Jerome  translated  Tobias  and 
Judith  from  the  Chaldaic,  and  declares  that  he  saw  Ecclesiasticus 
and  Maccabees  in  the  original  Hebrew.  Baruch  with  the  Epis- 
tle of  Jeremiah  bear  the  indelible  impress  of  their  Hebrew  ori- 
gin. Origen  declares  emphatically  that  the  parts  of  Esther  and 
Daniel  you  reject  were  in  the  versions  of  the  Septuagint  and 
of  Theodotion.  We  know  that^Theodotion,  whom  St.  Jerome 
:all3  SiJudaizing  Heretic,  translated  from  the  Hebrew  into  Greek, 
i.nd  his  version  of  Daniel  containing  those  parts,  is  that  anciently 
tdopted  by  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches,  and  still  followed  en- 
tirely by  the  first,  and  in  those  parts  by  the  latter.  This  clearly 
ascertained  origin  at  once  shows  that  the  works  were  prior  to 
.'he  Saviour.  If  the  Christians  had  written  them  afterward, 
iVhich  this  general  adoption  forbids,  they  would  have  done  it  in 
Greek  or  Latin,  their  lanoruaores.  The  book  of  Wisdom  and  the 
second  book  of  Maccabees  are  allowed  by  all  sane  critics  to  be 
incontestably  anterior  to  the  Saviour.  The  translation  of  the  He- 
brew works  into  the  Greek  for  the  use  of  the  Hellenist  Jews,  is  also 
allowed  to  have  taken  place  before  the  Saviour's  time.  Without 
attempting  now  to  prove  this  at  length  in  regard  to  every  book, 
especially  as  you  have  not  denied  it,  I  will  again  content  myself 
with  referring  to  Walton,  who  declares  that  those  works  were 
first  received  by  the  Hellenist  Jews,  although  it  cannot  be  ascer- 
tained at  what  time  they  were  joined  in  one  volume  with  the 
Jewish  canonical  works;  but  that  this  much  is  certain,  that  the 
church  received  them  with  the  rest  of  the  Scripture  from  those 
Hellenist  Jews.  I  said  the  transfer  was  made  with  the  approba- 
tion of  the  Apostles,  who  in  writing  their  inspired  epistles  had 
manifestly  used  those  works.  I  will  now  prove  it  by  the  versions  of 


APPENDIX.  409 

the  Old  Testament  among  the  Christians.  Taking  the  Septua- 
gint  or  Greek  version  alone,  I  cannot  see  what  valid  arguments 
can  be  adduced  to  prove  that  it  did  not  contain  those  works  in 
the  beginning.  Not  the  omission  of  them  in  copies,  for  the  old- 
est entire  manuscripts  contain  them.  Not  any  testimony  of  some 
ancient  writer,  for  as  far  as  they  bear  witness  it  did,  and,  as  I 
will  show  farther  on,  they  quote  those  identical  works.  But 
there  is  another  insurmountable  objection  to  your  opinion,  and 
an  irrefragable  proof  of  my  proposition.  Two  versions  were 
made  of  the  Scrijitures  immediately  after  the  death  of  the  Apos- 
tles, the  Latin  for  the  use  of  the  Western  Christians,  from  the 
Greek  ;  and  the  Syriac  from  the  Hebrew  and  Greek,  for  those  of 
the  east.      Both  contain  those  works. 

We  are  informed  that  many  versions  or  amended  versions 
existed  among  the  Latins,  but  that  there  was  one  called  the  vetus 
Itula  vuIgatR,  the  ancient  Italian,  and  commonly  adopted  one, 
the  first  of  all  and  probably  the  groundwork  of  the  others.  As 
far  back  as  manuscripts  and  notices  of  this  version  in  writers 
will  carry  us,  we  find  it  containing  those  books.  Blanchini  has 
published  part  of  it,  but  the  work  is  not  in  Charleston.  The 
book  of  Psalms,  both  books  of  the  Maccabees,  Wisdom  and  Ec- 
clesiasticus  and  the  parts  of  Esther,  as  now  used  in  the  western 
church,  are  of  this  oriorinal  version. 

The  Peshito,  or  ancient  simple  Syriac  version,  contained 
those  works.  Walton  has  inserted  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his 
Polyglott  the  whole  of  them,  except  the  portions  of  Esther ;  and 
part  at  least  of  these  has  been  since  found. 

This  version,  made,  as  is  allowed  by  all  oriental  scholars,  if 
not  in  the  first,  at  least  in  the  beginning  of  the  second  century, 
a  few  years  after  the  death  of  St.  John,  is  taken  from  the  He- 
brew and  Greek.  Theodotion,  who  translated  passages  of  Daniel 
from  the  Hebrew,  now  lost  in  that  language,  executed  his  ver- 
sions at  a  later  period  than  that  assigned  by  the  learned  to  the 
Syriac  translation.  At  his  day  those  parts  existed  in  Hebrew. 
St.  Jerome  saw  several  of  the  other  books  you  contest  in  He- 
brew (ir  Chaldaic,  and  the  word  he  uses,  rrpcri,  shows  that  copies 
of  them  were  then  extremely  rare  :  they  have  since  perished. 
Now  in  looking  over  the  Syriac  version  of  those  works,  you  will 


410  APPENDIX. 

see  that  some  are  taken  from  the  Hebrew,  where  probably  it 
could  be  found,  and  others  from  the  Greek,  where  the  work  was 
written  originally  in  that  language  or  the  Hebrew  might  not 
probably  have  been  at  hand.  The  Syriac  version  of  Tobias  and 
Judith  apparently  follows  the  Septuagint;  or  possibly  both  may 
be  directly  translated  from  the  original,  which  is  now  lost.  The 
version  of  St.  Jerome,  also  from  the  original,  follows  avowedly 
the  sense,  not  the  words  of  the  Chaldaic  or  Hebrew,  and  cannot 
guide  us  in  determining  which.  The  portions  of  Esther  in 
Syriac  were  not  in  the  possession  of  Walton.  They  are  found 
in  the  Septuagint  and  the  Vulgate.  I  said,  however,  that  part  of 
them  at  least  have  since  been  discovered  in  the  Syriac.  In  Wis- 
dom and  Ecclesiasticus  the  Syriac  agrees  with  the  Septuagint,  and 
appears  to  have  been  translated  from  it.  On  the  contrary,  Ba- 
riich  with  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah  appear  to  have  been  trans- 
lated into  Syriac,  not  from  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint,  but  from 
the  Hebrew  original  now  no  loncrer  extant.  So,  too,  the  Peshito 
Syriac  version  of  the  contested  parts  of  Daniel  is  taken,  not  from 
the  Septuagint,  but  from  the  original  Hebrew,  whence  Theodo- 
tion  at  a  later  period  took  them.  There  are  many  evidences  of 
this.  For  example,  in  the  History  of  Susannah,  the  Greek  says 
that  two  ancients  were  appointed  judges,  while  the  Syriac  has 
two  priests.  Now  the  original  Hebrew  word  was  undoubtedly 
cohenim,  which  signifies  both  priest,  and  prince,  or  ancient.  The 
Syriac  translator  took  the  Hebrew  word  in  one  sense,  and  the 
Greek  in  another.  This  difference  would  not  have  happened,  had 
the  Syriac  been  taken  simply  from  the  Greek.  On  a  comparison 
of  the  first  and  second  books  of  Maccabees  in  the  Greek  and  in 
the  Syriac  version,  it  will  be  evident,  that  the  second  book  in 
Syriac  is  taken  from  the  Greek,  while  it  seems  more  probable 
that  the  first  is  from  the  kindred  Hebrew. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  immediately  after  the  days  of  the 
Apostles,  in  the  first  or  beginning  of  the  second  century,  when, 
according  to  Walton,  Wiseman,  and  the  best  scholars,  the  Syriac 
and  Latin  versions  were  made,  the  Christians  did  not  think  that 
no  books  were  contained  in  their  Old  Testament,  except  those 
inserted  by  the  Synagogue  in  the  Jewish  canon.  Whether  the 
whole  Christian  world  could  have  united  in  embodying  the  books 


APPENDIX.  411 

you  object  to  in  their  body  of  Scriptures,  without  some  testimony 
from  the  Apostles  to  that  effect,  I  leave  you  and  mv  readers  to 
judge.  I  believe,  as  I  said,  with  Walton,  that  th(jse  books  were 
united  to  the  Jewish  canonical  books  by  the  Hellenist  Jews,  be- 
fore the  days  of  Christianity,  and  that  they  came  already  united 
into  the  church.  The  Apostles,  as  I  showed  in  my  last,  allude 
to  and  incorporate  passages  and  phrases  from  these  works  into 
their  own  writings.  We  have  just  seen  that  the  early  Septuacrint 
and  the  two  other  versions  made  by  Christians,  in  what  you  will 
allow  were  the  purest  and  palmiest  days  of  Christianity,  contained 
them.  Even  were  I  to  give,  that  these  books  were  not  united  to 
the  others  before  the  time  of  Christ,  this  concession  would  but 
increase  your  difficulty,  and  display  more  strikingly  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Old  Testament,  a 
difference  which  could  only  arise  from  the  teaching  of  Christ 
and  his  Apostles. 

But,  you  may  say,  if  this  be  so,  the  early  Christian  writers 
would  quote  those  books.  It  is  natural,  Rev.  Sir,  that  if  they 
wrote  much  they  should  sometimes  do  so,  and  that,  if  their  works 
be  preserved  in  any  quantity,  we  should  find  such  quotations 
therein.     And  zee  dojind  them. 

We  have  a  portion  of  the  authentic  writings  of  four  Chris- 
tians before  the  year  100;  St.  Barnabas  the  Apostle's  catholic 
Epistle;  St.  Polycap's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians;  St.  Ignatius's 
Epistles;  and  a  considerable  portion  of  St.  Clement's  first  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians,  and  a  fragment  of  his  second  Epistle  to  the 
same. 

Now  in  this  small  collection,  the  earliest  of  the  Christian 
writings,  we  have  several  quotations  from  those  books. 

1.  St.  Barnabas,  in  §  6  of  his  Epistle,  has  the  following 
passage :  "  But  what  saith  the  Prophet  against  Israel :  Woe  be 
to  their  soul,  because  they  have  taken  wicked  counsel  against 
themselves,  saying  :  Let  us  lay  snares  for  the  righteous,  because 
he  is  unprofitable  to  us."  This  passage  is  composed  of  the  two 
texts,  Isaias  iii.  9,  "  \Voc  to  their  soul,  for  evils  are  rendered 
to  theui,"  and  Wisdom  ii.  IvI,  "  Let  us  therefore  lie  in  wait  for 
the  just,  because  he  is  not  for  our  turn."  Here  St.  Barnabas 
quotes  in  the  same  sentence,  and  us  of  equal  inspired  authority, 


412  APPENDIX. 

the  book  of  Isaias,  contained  in  the  canon  of  the  Jews,  and  that 
of  Wisdom,  one  of  those  you  boldly  declare  to  be  of  no  more 
authority  than  Seneca's  Letters  or  Tully's  Offices. 

2.  Towards  the  end  of  the  same  Epistle,  the  apostolical 
writer  says  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  be  forward  to  speak ;  for  the 
mouth  is  the  snare  of  death.  Strive  with  thy  soul  for  all  thy 
might.  Reach  not  out  thy  hand  to  receive,  and  withhold  it  not, 
when  thou  shouldst  give."  What  is  this  but  a  quotation  of  £c- 
clesiasticus  (iv.  33,  34,  36),  another  of  the  books  of  your  heathen 
category?  ^'  Strive  for  justice  for  thy  soul,  and  even  unto  death 
fight  for  justice,  and  God  will  overthrow  thy  enemies  for  thee. 
Se  not  hasty  in  thy  tongue :  and  slack  and  remiss  in  thy  works. 
Let  7iot  thy  hand  he  stretched  out  to  receive,  and  shut  when  thou 
shouldst  give  J' 

3.  St.  Polycarp's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  comes  next.  In 
the  tenth  section  he  has  the  following  passage  :  "  When  it  is  in 
your  power  to  do  good,  defer  it  not,  for  charity  delivereth  from 
death.  Be  all  of  you  subject  to  one  another,  having  your  conver- 
sations honest  (or  irreproachable)  among  the  Gentiles."  St. 
Polycarp,  like  St.  Barnabas,  quotes  in  the  same  breath  an  author 
whom  you  admit  as  inspired,  and  one  whom  you  reject  and  con- 
demn Catholics  for  revering  with  him.  "  For  alms  delivereth 
from  death."  Tobias  xii.  9.  "  Having  your  conversation  good 
among  the  Gentiles."     1  Pet.  ii.  12. 

There  are  one  or  two  passages  in  the  Fpistles  of  St.  Ignatius 
which  seem  to  me  to  imply  quotations  from  the  books  in  question. 
But  as  they  are  not  so  clear  and  striking,  I  omit  them.  I  find 
too  that  several  authors  refer  to  a  passage  speaking  of  Daniel 
and  Susannah.  But  as  it  is  not  in  the  copy  before  me,  I  con- 
sider it  most  probably  one  of  the  interpolations  foisted  into  the 
saint's  writings  in  after  years.  We  will  leave  him  then  and  take 
up  the  other  writer. 

4.  In  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  §  27,  St.  Clement, 
fourth  bishop  of  Rome,  has  the  following  passage :  "  Who  shall 
say  to  Him,  what  dost  thou  ?  or  who  shall  resist  the  power  of  His 
strensrth  ?"  These  words  are  taken  from  Wisdom  xi.  52,  and  xli, 
12  :  "  For  who  shall  say  to  thee,  what  hast  thou  done?"  *'  And 
who  shall  resist  the  strength  of  thy  arm  ?" 


APPENDIX.  413 

5.  In  §  55,  he  writes  thus  :  "  And  even  many  women,  being 
strengthened  by  the  grace  of  God,  have  done  many  glorious  and 
manly  things.  The  blessed  Judith,  when  her  city  was  besietred 
desired  the  elders  that  they  would  suffer  her  to  go  to  the  camp 
of  the  strangers;  and  she  went  out,  exposing  herself  to  danaer 
for  the  love  she  bore  to  her  country  and  her  people  that  were 
besieged.  And  the  Lord  delivered  Ilolof ernes  into  the  hands  of 
a  woman.  Nor  did  Esther,  being  perfect  in  faith,  expose  herself 
to  any  less  hazard  for  the  delivery  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel, 
in  danger  of  being  destroyed.  For  by  fasting  and  humbling  her- 
self, she  intreated  the  great  Maker  of  all  things,  the  God  of  ages  ; 
who,  beholding  the  humility  of  her  soul,  delivered  the  people  for 
whose  sake  she  was  in  peril."  The  passage  speaks  for  itself  I 
may  say  that  the  words  marked  in  italics  are  extracted  from  the 
sublime  canticle  of  Judith  (xvi.  7).  In  his  account  of  Esther, 
too,  St.  Clement  evidently  had  in  his  mind,  not  only  the  passao-e 
in  Hebrews  iv.  16,  v.  2,  but  the  prayer  of  Esther  (xiv.),  one  of 
those  portions  which  you  reject,  with  which  every  word  he  uses 
admirably  tallies. 

I  have  been  admonished  not  to  encroach  too  much  on  the 
columns  of  the  Miscellany,  and  must  conclude  here  for  the  present. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  infancy  of  the 
church,  and  from  one  extremity  of  the  Christian  world  to  the 
other,  whether  in  Syriac,  in  Greek,  or  in  Latin,  conta  ned  the 
books  which  tlie  Catholic  canon  now  contains,  and  which  you 
would  have  us  exclude.  We  have  seen  three  out  of  the  four 
first  Christian  writers  quoting  them  unequivocally,  precisely  as 
they  quote  the  other  books  of  the  Scripture — making  no  distinc- 
tion whatever.  Add  to  this,  if  you  please,  the  passages  enumer- 
ated in  my  last  letter,  wherein  the  inspired  writers  of  the  New 
Testament  have  evidently  used  those  works  ;  and  then  withdraw 
your  thoughtless  assertion  that  **  the  unbroken  testimony  of  the 
Christian  church  is  against  their  inspiration." 

I  will  in  my  next  take  up  some  Christian  writers  of  the^second 
century,  and  shall  show  that  they  also  quoted  those  works  as 
parts  of  the  Scripture.     Meanwhile, 

I  remain,  Rev.  Sir, 

Yours,  &,c., 

A.  P.  F. 


414 


APPENDIX. 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  PASSAGES  IN  WHICH  DR.  LYNCH  HAS  REPRESENTED 
THE  FATHERS  AS  QUOTING  THE  APOCRYPHA. 

N.  B.  The  first  column  gives  the  name  of  the  author  and  the  book ;  the  second,  the  pas- 
sages which  are  simply  quoted  or  accommodated  ;  the  third,  those  which  are  quoted  with 
some  mark  of  distinction,  as  Scripture,  Divine  Scripture,  or  under  the  name  of  a  prophet ; 
the  fourth  gives  merely  allusions  to  the  contents  ol  the  book,  or  assumes  its  history  to  be  true- 

Some  few  passages  may  have  been  omitted,  as  the  syllabus  has  been  prepared  in  great 
haste. 


Name    and  Works   of 

Apocryphal  passages 

Those    quoted     as 

the  Fathers. 

which  are  simply  quo- 
ted. 

Scripture,    or    Divine 
Scripture. 

Allusions  to 

Apocry. 

JUSTIN  MARTYR. 

I  Apol.  $  44. 

Ecclus.  XV.  14-18. 

IREN^US. 

Contra  Haeres  l.iv.c.37 

Wisdom  vi.  20. 

"         lib.v.  c.  35. 

8aruchiv.36.37. 

"         lib.  iv.  c.26. 

Daniel  xiii.  56,  52,  53. 

"        hb.  iv.c.  5. 

"      xiv.  3,  4,24. 

CLEMENS  ALEX. 

• 

Psedag.  lib.  i.  c.7. 

Ecclus.  xi.  7.  i.  27, 28. 

"       lib.  i.  c.  9. 

Ecclus.  XXX.  8. 

"       lib.  ii  C.5. 

Ecclus.  xxi  23. 

"       lib.  ii.  c.  8. 

"         xxxviii.  1. 

"       lib.  ii.  c.  8. 

"         xxxix.  31. 

"      lib.iii.  c.  3. 

"         XXV.  8 

Stromat.  lib.  iv. 

Wisdom    iii.   2-8.  (as 
Divine  Wisdom.) 

"        lib.  vi. 

Wisdom  v.  2-5.  (under 

name  of  Solomon.) 

"        lib.  vi. 

Wisdom  iii.  14.  as  Sol. 

PaBdag.  lib.  i.  c.  10. 

Bar.  iv.  4.  iii.4.  as  Jer. 

"      lib.ii.  c.  3. 

"     iii.  16-19. 

Strom,  lib.  vi. 

Tobias  xii.  8. 

TERTULLIAN. 

Monog.  c.  17. 

. 

Judith  viii.  1. 

Preescrip.  c.  7. 

Wisdom  i.  l.as  Sol. 

Cont.  Valent.  c.  2. 

........ 

"        i.  1.  as  Sol. 

De  anima  c.  15. 

Wisdom  i.  6. 

De  virg.  vel.  c.  13, 

"         viii.  21, 

Cont.  marc.  c.  5. 

Ecclus.  XV.  18. 

De  exhort,  cast.  c.  2. 

Ecclus.  XV.  18. 

Scorpiseum 

Bar.  vi.  3,  4,5.  as  Jer. 

De  coron  milit.  c.  4. 

Daniel  xiii.  32. 

De  Idol.  c.  18 

Daniel  xiv. 

De  Jejun.  c.  9. 

"      xiv.  32, 38. 

Advs.  Jud   c.  4. 

I  Mai.  ii.41. 

De  prsescrip.  c.  13- 

•.••••.. 

2  Mai.  ii.  28. 

CYPRIAN. 

Test,  adauir.  1.  iii.c.l 

Tobias  ii.  2.  iv;  6-12. 

"        "     l.iii.c.7. 

"      ii.  16. 

De  Mortal!  c.7. 

"      xii.  15. 

APPENDIX. 


41. 


Name    and   Works    of     Apocryphnl  pnggagepl      Those     quoted     &f 
the  Fathers.  wliich  are  simply  quo-  "Scripture,    or    Divini 

ted.  Scripture. 


CYPRIAN. 

De  Orat,  Dom.  c.  21. 

He  Op  et  Elecmos  c.4  Tobit  xii.8. 

Exhort.  Mart.  c.  12.  

De  .Mortal,  c.  17.  

Ad  D.mct.  c.  13.  Wisdom  v.  1-8. 

De  habit.  Virg  c.  7.      I  

Ad  Rogat.  I  

Dc  Mortal,  c.  5.  |  

De  Op.  et  Eleemos.  c.2^  

De  Unit.  Eccles.  c.  19.;  

Ad  Kogat. 

De  Laps.  c.  19. 

De  Unit.  Eccles.  c.  11. 

De  Orat  Dom.  c.  4. 

E.xhort   ad  Mort.  c,  11. 

De  <  »rat   Dom.  c.  14. 

De  Op.  et  Eleemos.  c.8 

Epist.  40. 

Test,  ad  Quir.  1.  ii.  c.6. 

De  Orat.  Dom.  c.  2 

Test,  ad  duit.  1.  iii.  c.4  2  Mac.  ix.  12.  ii.  62, 63. 

,,         ,.,    ...        ,.,   2  Mac.   vi.  30.   vii,   9. 
hb.iu.  c.  17.,      ,4^16,17,18,19.     ' 

"         lib  iii.  C.3.    IMac.  ii.  60. 
Exhort  ad  Mort.  c.  12 


HIPPOLYTUS. 

Cont.  Noet.c.  2. 

DIONYSIUS  OF  AL- 
EXANDRIA. 

Epist.  ad  Germ. 
Cont.  Paul.  Samosat 

APOST.    CONSTI- 
TUTIONS. 

Lib.  ii.  c.  37,49.51. 
Lib.  viii.  c.  ]. 
Lib.  vi.  c.  19. 
Lib.  vii.  c.  23. 
Lib.  vi.  c.  29. 
Lib.  iii  c.  7. 
Lib.  v.  c.  19. 

POPE  SIRICIUS 

Kpist.  ad  Himmer.  c.  7. 

JULIUS    FIRMICUS 
MATERNUS. 


EPIIREM.  THE  SY- 
RIAN. 

De  Evcrs.  superb. 


Tobit.  xii.8. 

Wisdom  iii   4-8. 
"       iv.  11-14. 

"  V.  8. 

"  iii.  4-8. 

Ecclus  ii.  1-4. 

'•  iii.  33. 

•'  xxviii.  28. 

"  vii.  31-33, 

Daniel  xxv  34. 


Daniel  iii   51. 
"      xiv.  4. 


Bar.  iii.  36-38,  as  Jer. 
"     vi.5. 


Baruch  iii.  36-38. 

"       iv.  4. 
Wisdom  iii.  J. 


Wisdom  i.  4. 


Baruch  iii.  36-38. 


Tobit  xiii.  7. 
Wisdom  i.  5,  6. 


Allusions  to  Apocry. 


Daniel  iii.  49-50. 


XIV. 

xiv. 
xiii. 


2  Mac.  vi.  and  vii. 


Daniel  ix. 


Wisdom  XV.  15-17  as 

Solomon's. 
Baruch  vi.  5-9.  as  Jer. 

•  I        Yi    21    05    30 

31,  64,  50,  and  57. 


Daniel  xiii. 
'*       xiv. 


Judith. 


416 


APPENDIX. 


Name    and   Works   of 

Apocryphal  passages 

Those    quoted    as 

the  Fathers. 

which  are  simply  quo- 
ted. 

1 

Scripture,   or    Divine 
Scripture. 

Allusions  to 

Apocry. 

EPHREM.  THE  SY- 

RIAN. 

De  virtut.  c.  3. 

Daniel  iii.  40. 

De  Humil.  c.  9. 

"      iii.  39. 

Paraens.  9. 

«      iii.  50. 

De  orat. 

"      iii.  33. 

De  paenit.  c,  23. 

, , 

Daniel  iii. 

Paraen.  ad  monegit,  c. 
14,  11. 

Daniel  xiii.  52. 

Epist.  ad  Joan. 

Daniel  xiii. 

De  muliere. 

"     xiii. 

De  Rect.viv.  Nat.  c.85 

"      iv.  32 

-36. 

De  Patient.  Sec. 

"     iv.  32- 

-36. 

In  D  Basylium. 

Tobit  xii.  7. 

Serm.  Cent.  Jude. 

Baruchix.4&20.iii.38 

De  Tiniore  Dei. 

Wisdom  iv.  12. 

De  Certam.  &c.  c.  8. 

••«••... 

Wis.iv.7,8.9.T.l— 16 

Advs.  Levit. 



"     iii.  1,  6.  9. 

De  Humil.  c.  94. 

"     ii.  21,22. 

Parsen,  39. 

Wisdom  vi.  9. 

Exhort  40. 

"        i.  12. 

"      46. 

Wisdom  XV.  12. 

De  Patient. 

'«         V.  18—24. 

De  vFrt.  et.  vit.  c.  8. 

Ecclus.  ii.  15. 

De     imore  Dei. 

Ecclus.  xxxii.  1.  viii. 
6,  7.  xxxi.  5. 

"       XXV.  13  iii. 
7.  xviii.  30  and  31. 

(( 

Ecclus.  vi.  18. 

Eccl.xi.  5,  iv.7.  vii.40. 

De  Panop.  &c. 

"    vi.  30. 

De  cast. 

Ecclus.  Vv.  25, 26. 

Neerosima.  can.  15. 

2d  Mac.  vi. 

Testamentum. 

"      vi. 

BASIL  THE  GREAT 

Cont.  Eunom.  lib.  5,  c. 
15,  §  2. 

Wisd.  i.  4. 

Cont.  Eunom.  c.l4,$2. 

Wisdom  i.  7. 

"             c  2. 

Wis.  ix.  1,2,  as  Sol. 

(( 

Wisdom  i.  7. 

Epist.  8,  $  12,  and  11. 

Wis.  i.  4,  7. 

Horn.  12. 

"    i.  4,  as  Solomon's 

"     14. 

"    vi.  7. 

De  Sane.  Spir.  c.  23,  $ 
54. 

Wisdom  i.  7. 

Horn.  12,  §  13. 

Daniel  xiii.  50. 

Hom.  in  40  mart.  §  6. 

"      iii.  40. 

Epist.  243,  $  43. 

"      iii.  38,  39. 

CoDt.  Unam.  lib.2.  §19 

Esther  xiv.  11. 

"         "       "  4.C.  3. 

Baruch  iii.  32,  as  Jer. 

')e  Sane.  Spir.  cS.  §  19 

Judith  ix.  4. 

Epist  6. 

2d  Mac.  vii« 

Hom.  Deut.  c.  5, 9. 

Ecclus.  ix.  20. 

Hexaem.  Hom.  6,  910. 

xxvii.  12. 

Capit.  Ques.  104. 

Ecclus.  xxxii.  22. 

CHRYSOSTOM. 

Ad  Viduam  Jun. 

Ecclus.  xviii  26.  xi.  5. 

Hom.  de  Lat. 

"      xix.  16. 

Serm.  8.  Cont.  Jude. 

"      ii.  1—5. 

Serm.  de  Lat. 

Ecclus.  ii.  1,  2. 

Exhort.  2  ad.  Theod. 

"      V.  8. 

Hom.  18.  ad  pop.  anth. 

«     xiv.  2. 

I 


APPENDIX. 


417 


Name    ami   Works    of    Apocryphal  passages  |       Those    quoted     as 
the  Fathers.  i  which  are  simply  quo- Scripture,    or    Divine 

ted.  Scriptures. 


CIIRYSOSTOM. 

Do  Fato. 

Horn.  15.  ad  pop.  anth. 
Serm.  1  in  Act.  Apost. 
De  virginitat.  c.  22. 
Serm.  inCalcndas. 
Horn,  in  Gen.  11. 
P.salm  109. 
Horn,  in  Matt.  27. 
Horn,  in  Ept.  Heb.  7. 
Nous.  Anom.  5. 
Cont.  Jude  et  Gent. 
Horn.  3.  ad  pop.  anth. 
Honi.  GO.  in  Joan. 
Horn.  13.  in  Epis.  Heb. 
Horn.  9.  do 

Hom.  5.  Nous.  Anom. 
Cont.  Jude  et  Gent. 
Hom.  in  Pentecost,  1. 
Hom.  15.  in  Ist  Cor. 
Hom.  18.  do 

Hom.  2.  in  Philem. 

AMBROSE. 

Hexaem.  Lib.  4.  c.  8. 

In  Xoach,  <!fcc.  c.  35. 

In  Naboth.  c.  8. 

Tract,  de  42. 

Psalm  118. 

Jacob,  c.  8. 

Joseph. 

Psalm  43.  | 

Hexaem.  Lib.  3.  c.  14* 

Jn  Tobit.  I 

Cain  et  Abel,  c  9.        I 
42  Man.s.  | 

Hexaem.  Lib.  ii.  c.  4. 
De  officii?.  Lib.  ii.  c.  9. 
Joseph  c.  5.  I 

Jacob.  Lib.  i.  c.  8.         ' 
do      Lib.  ii.  c.  9.       i 
Elias,  c.  9. 

De  officiis,  c.  13  &  14. 
Jacob.  Lib.  ii.  c.  9. 
De  officiis,  Lib.  ii.  o.  29 

PAULINAS  OF 
NOLA. 


Exhort,  ad  cclant. 
Epist.  ad  pamacb.  37. 

do     30. 

do     32. 

do    39. 

do    37. 


Wisdom  V.  36. 
"        iii.  1. 


Esther  xiv.  13. 


Daniel  iii.  23. 
"  iii.  38. 
"      iii.  38. 


Daniel  iii.  29,  30. 
"      iii.   29,  30,  39, 
32.  xiv.  37. 


Ecclua.  XV.  17  and  15. 
Ec.  i.20.  ix.  10,  as  Sol. 
Ecclus.  xvi.  3. 


Wisdom  xiv.  3. 

"      xvi.  28. 

"      vi.  7. 

'«       iv.  8,  9. 
Baruch  iii.  3fr,  37,  38. 
"      iii.  36,  37,  38. 


Tobit  iv.  7. 
"      iv.  U. 


Daniel  xiii.  52. 


Ecclus.  xxvi.  12. 
"      xxxii.  13. 
"      iv.  8. 
"      ii.  5. 
Wisdom  i   6. 
jWis.  iv.  8,  9.  xiv.  7,8. 
I  Wis.  ii.  12,  as  Sol. 
[Wis.  vii.  7,     do 
I  Baruch  iv.  26.  v.  27,  as 

Jeremiah. 
BafU"^!!  iii.  24,  25. 
"       iii.  1. 
"       iii.  29,  30. 
Dau.  iii.  56,  68,  67.  74. 


Allusiona  to  Apocry. 


Judith  mentioned. 


Judith  viii.  6. 


,Ref.  to  story  ofSusann. 

I 

jRef.  to  Bel  and  Dragon 


Ref.  to  Judith. 
2d  Mac.  6  and  7  cap. 
"     3. 


Eccl.  iv.  25— 2S.xiviii. 

28,  29.-3  ch.  20  v. 
Ec.  xxxviii.  16  xvii.  18 
Ec.  vii.  16.  Wis.  viii.  1 
Ec.  xix.  15. 
Eo.  v.  B. 
Wisdom  iv.  7.  Baruch 

iii.  18,  19. 


11^  The  somewhat  numerous  errata  noted  below,  are  to  be  accounted  for  partly 
from  the  author's  distant  residence  from  thu  place  of  priniiiifjr,  which  prevented 
him  from  revising  the  i)roofs  ;  but  mainly,  from  the  obscurity  and  incorrectness 
of  the  manuscript.  They  occur  mostly  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  quotations  in 
the  Notes,  many  of  which  it  was  impossible  to  verify  on  the  spot,  and  have  sel- 
dom any  important  bearing  on  the  sense. 

ERRATA. 

Page    12,  last  line  in  notu,read  Remoiust-  for  Demonst. 

'■  21,  fifili  line  of  note,  read  super  ca  re  for  i-uperarc. 

"  "      first  line  of  note,  read  discuterentur  for  discutiuntur. 

"  "     fourteenth  line  of  note,  6c\efacUi 

"  "  "  "  "       insert  Sanctum  after  apud. 

"  "     seventeenth  line  of  note,  read  eipciutercntur  for  cjperentur. 

*'  "     twenty-eighth  line  of  note  read  detested  for  detected. 

"       40,  first  hnc  of  note  read  A.  V.  F.,  for  A.  P.  P. 

'•       41,  Note,  for  Westminster  Conf.  chap.  i.  55,  read  chap.  i.  $  5. 

"  44,  first  line  of  note,  for  apnnroijxiiveUai  read  ai-aiTOipatveaOai. 

"       55,  fiftii  line  of  note,  read  tout  for  tous. 

"  '•     eighth  lino  of  note,  read  coiis^'fMf  for  coTUsfi^i//?.   • 

*'  "     tenth  line  of  note,  read  appartient  exclusivemcnt  for  appartiens  cxslusivemcju. 

"       "      thirteenth  line  of  note,  read  rnantVre  y>flr  for  manjrrc  pa*. 

"  "      fourtcentli  line  of  note,  read  cllc  for  cettc. 

"  "      fifteenth  line  of  note,  read  dans  for  sans. 

"  "     twenty-sixth  line  of  note,  read  cct  for  «<w. 

"       "     thirtieth  lino  of  note,  read  n^en  for  ij  en. 

"  "      thirty-second  line  of  note,  read />ri//iau<^  for  priwMWitC. 

"  "     fourth  line  from  bottom,  read  celle-ci  for  cellece. 

"  "  "         "         "  read  rcjetcr  for  rejiter. 

"  "      third  line  from  bottom,  insert  nicr  after  sans. 

'•  "     second  line  from  bottom,  read  qui  for  que. 

"  63,  line  22,  dele  tlie  last  word,  their. 

"  95,  second  note,  thirteenth  line  from  bottom,  read  g-ratite  for  gratia. 

"  '•     twelfth  line  from  bottom,  read  voluerunt  for  volaerant. 

'•  "     sixth  line  from  bottom,  read  omnis  foi  om-sis. 

"  96,  fourth  line,  read  dialectics  for  dialects. 

•'  118,  first  Latin  note  at  star,  read  aliquid  for  allquid. 

"  124,  seventh  line  of  note,  read  ayvoovvres  for  ayvavvra. 

•'       "  "  '«  "     KarayycWopcv  iox  KaTayeyn^tv. 

*'  "     eighth  line,  read  TcXcioiacii  for  rtXfiwaaf. 

"  "     fourteenth  lino,  read  est  eucharistiu,  for  et  rucharistia. 

•'  "     eighth  line  from  bottom,  read  dubitarnnt  for  dubitant. 

'*       "  ''  "  "         superstittunum  for  supersitionem. 

*'       "  "  "  "         epoplis  for  epoptes. 

"  "     seventh  line  from  bottom,  read  euni  for  sum. 

"  *'     third  line  from  bottom,  read  deilati  for  deitate. 

"  125,  second  line  of  note,  read  mystcriis  for  mysteries. 

"       "     seventeenth  line  of  note,  read  arcana  for  arcano. 

"  "     twenty-ser,OH(l  line  of  note,  read  se  for  es. 

"  130,  the  first  note  there  siiould  liave  embraced  the  one  wiiich  foUowi  the  extract  from 
Calvin's  Institutes  on  page  131,  beginning,  'The  .Apostles  arc  a<MresBod,"  Sec. 

"  133,  note,  sixth  \\n<\  fro d  bottom,  there  should  be  quotation  marks  after  the  word  Bisk- 
ops,  ilius,  bishops,"  and  the  next  sentence  shou'd  begin  a  paragraph. 

"  134,  the  star  in  the  text  should  be  a  section,  as  it  does  not  correspond  to  the  note. 

**  145,  note  at  star,  dele  to  effort. 

"  146,  note,  eighth  lino  from  bottom,  read  reddidit  for  rcddidat. 

"       '*     last  line,  road  prastitcrint  for  pnrstitircnt. 

"  147,  second  lino  of  nolo,  read  vero  for  viro. 

"       "    note  at  star,  first  word,  for  assequitur  read  assequtCur. 

*'       "     samti  note,  IhBt  woid,  i'oT  poteslatis,  Toad  potentates. 

*'  149  that  no-e  exhibits  the  opinions  of  Aquinas,  /Lgidius  and  Cajetan,  ai  given  by 
Bellarmin. 

"  152,  note,  third  lino,  read  imperator  for  impcratur,  and  put  a  comma  between  it  anJ  tho 
preceiling  word. 

"       "     note,  seventh  lino,  read  Jicri  pcrmiscrint  for  ffcri  pcrmiicrrint. 
•'       '•     read  feudalia  i'oT  fudalia. 

"       "     note,  thirteenth  lino,  read  suaserint  for  stuvidrrint 

•*  153,  note  at  star,  second  line,  read  drtinentcs  for  df^stinfnte.s.  • 

«•       "  '•  "  "     TCtid  Jidelilatis  for  Jidelitutea. 

"       ''     third  line,  rend  scrvus  for  serrius. 
*'       "     fourth  line,  read  cadtt  for  radat. 

•'  154,  note,  first  line,  read  Presbyterum,  for  Pre^byttrium. 


ERRATA. 

Page  154,  third  line,  read  crimine  for  crimina. 

"  180,  note,  third  line  from  bottom,  read  Kemnitium  for  Rtmnitium. 

"  188,  note,  twelfth  line,  read  recipiendos,  for  recipiendo. 

"  223,  note  beginning Ecclesiasticus,  fill  the  blank  with  ayc^vKrai. 

"  252,  note,  first  line,  read  ezscribentes,  for  enscribentes. 

"  259,  Greek  note,  fourth  line,  read  KonficoriKHs  for  KOn^oiTiEr]^. 

'«  '<  't  »  "  read  skto?  for  ktito;. 

"       "     fifth  line,  read  ayxoi^^vov  for  aX;^o/i£»'Oj'. 

"  "  "        read  ISicotikov  for  pporiKUP. 

"       "     sixth  line,  read  r>7f  for  r£j,  and  i-po^rjr/js  for  Trpo^ijrfs. 

"  "     seventh  line,  read  aaaTOt  for  aaaeco. 

"  262,  "note,  first  line,  read  rov  for  £0-t. 

"       "     text,  f jurteenth  line,  last  word,  read  were  for  we. 

"  "     note,  second  line  from  bottom,  read  jjriore  for  prtora. 

"  26?^,  last  note,  read  sancto  for  sancte. 

"  274,  Greek  note,  first  line,  read  ov  for  ov. 

"  275,  note  eighth  l.ne,  read  omnino  for  oranino. 

"  282,  last  note  third  line,  read  Kemnitius  for  Kenilius,  and  last  line  but  one,  censuerit 

for  coTisuerit. 

"  283,  note,  fourth  line,  read  ezfama  Cot  ezeama. 

"  2-34,  third  note,  second  line,  read  tov  for  ~oj. 

"  •'     fourth  note,  first  line,  read  Orig-ines  for  origines. 

*'  S55,  note,  second  line,  read  accensei  for  accensit. 

"  "     fourteenth  line,  read  Lindanus  dubitantis  for  Lindamus  dubitantes. 

"  "     fifteenth  line,  read  definientisiot  definientes,  and  in  the  same  note  there  should  be 

only  a  comma  at  47. 

"  2>'-7,  note,  first  line,  read  legatur  for  legitur. 

"  289,  note  second,  second  line,  xeSiA  prcefatione  for  presatione. 

"  "     last  note,  first  line,  read  Carthaginiense  for  Carthaginensi, 
"       "     fourth  line,  read  intelUgetis  for  intelligeris. 

'*  "     seventh  line,  insert  2  before  Esdrce  and  a  period  after,  and  read  Hebrcei  for  Hebrari. 
"       "     tenth  line,  read  altius  for  aliiLs. 

"  290,  note,  first  line,  insert  ut  before  primum. 

"       "     fourth  line,  insert  2  before  paralipomenon,  and  read  impejitiam  for  imperitalem. 

"  "     seventeenth  line,  read  animadverso  for  animadverto. 
"       "     nineteenth  line,  read  Heira  for  Hera. 

"  "     twenty-second  line,  read  opinionem  for  opinione. 

"  "     twenty-third  line,  after  Bibliis  insert  regiis  habeater  Tertii  Esdrae  Graece  ;   ne  in 

Germanicis  quidem  Bibliis. 

"  "     twenty-seventh  line,  read  debetis  for  deletis. 
"       "     twenty-eighth  line,  read  alias  for  alios. 

"  "     last  line,  read  et  qua;  for  ac  qui,  and  for  ex  read  en. 

"  291,  twenty-first  line,  read  interpretati  for  interpretate. 

"  "     twenty-third  line,  read  vives  for  vires. 

"  "     twenty-eighth  line,  read  novam  for  noram. 

"  "     twenty-ninth  line,  read  quidem  for  decidem. 

"  "     last  line,  insert  nunc  before  novam,  and  read  authore  for  out  Awe. 

"  292,  note,  first  line,  read  prccsideo  for  prmfideo. 

"  "     third  line,  read  iranslationem  for  translatione. 
"       "     eleventh  line,  read  nostras  for  nostras. 

*'  "     twenty-second  line,  rea^d  fa cillime  for  facimile,  also  ^imiZi  for  airntZi. 
"       "     twenty-fifth  line,  read  Carthaginiense  for  Carthaginensi. 

"  294,  note,  eighth  line,  read  ordini  for  ordine. 
"       "     eleventh  line,  period  at  termlnatam. 

"  "     seventh  line  from  bottom,  dele  qui  connezi  subimet. 

"  295,  note,  second  line,  read  prophetaverunt  for  propherareunt. 

"  296,  first  note,  last  line,  put  a  colon  at  christianus. 
"       "     second  note,  first  line,  read  scriniaria  for  seriniaria. 

"  299,  note  at  star,  fifth  line,  read  sive  for  sine. 

"  "     note  at  dagger,  third  line,  read  duntazai  for  dum  Zazat. 

"  311,  note,  first  line,  read  Jj^two-a J  for  £^icjo-aj. 
*'      "     fifth  line,  read  <yov  for  (tov. 
"       "     seventh  line,  read  avaTo'\r)v  for  evaroXriv. 
"       "     twelfth  line,  read    £K\oya5  for  £K\oy(o<:. 
"       "     last  line,  read  £^  for  £k. 

"  317,  note,  first  line,  read  ^aXfiov  for  ipa'Xnoyv. 


Date  Due 

£/          . 

^ 

BS1135 .T51 

The  arguments  of  Romanists  from  the 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00011   7814 


i»4 


igmm.:'^^^ 


